Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 387 



easily difter as to the mode of rendering it useful after they have 

 admitted its propriety. 



As the greatest expense of mining is in the payment of mere 

 labour, so the greatest oeconomy will be in rendering labour most 

 effective with the least cost. Payment by contract for work done, 

 and remuneration according to the quantity of ore obtained, or 

 according to the measure of ground penetrated, were important 

 steps in this part of the ceconomy of mines, and are accordingly to 

 be found in all districts ; and formerly there was an inclination to 

 rest upon these as if every thing desirable had been thus accom- 

 plished. But labour is cheap or dear according to the real quan- 

 tity performed for a given amount of money; and where prices 

 were adjusted only by a reference to what had been earned, the 

 calculation was often deficient in one most important element : — 

 the skill and industry of different men were not sufficiently taken 

 into the account; and the system might be pursued with a kind of 

 injustice, if I may so express it, confounding the industrious with 

 the indolent, the strong with the weak, the skilful with the ignorant. 

 To obtain a just appreciation of this difficult subject, a system of 

 perfect supervision was found necessary; and in proportion to the 

 importance of this part of the management of mines, have been the 

 means of control em])loyed to govern it. At first sight, the expense 

 of the number of agents required for tins vigilance has often been 

 objected to, and it may need a thorough and intimate acquaintance 

 with the subject to understand its utility. But when perfectly un- 

 derstood and judiciously enforced, its value will not, I think, be 

 underrated ; its object is not to depress the wages of the workmen to 

 the lowest possible limit, but to secure to the employer the utmost 

 reasonable quantity of labour for his money ; and this will fre- 

 quently be found to be more compatible with decent means of sup- 

 port, and terms that excite activity and exertion, than a more par- 

 simonious system, by which industry is damped and physical strength 

 is reduced. Among the improvements of modern times, therefore, 

 I reckon the employment of a class of agents, selected for their 

 character from among the class of working miners, practically 

 versed in the work they have to direct, and interested in the success 

 of the concerns they are engaged in, by the dependence which they 

 will naturally feel upon it. Auxiliary to these ends, public competi- 

 tion for contracts has been introduced, destroy ing the partiality wliich 

 occurs in private bargains, checking the judgement of agents by that 

 of greater numbers of the men, and expediting the means of agree- 

 ment. As the means of drainage became expensive, and as the cost of 

 establishments became larger, and amounts of invested capital in- 

 creased, so it became necessary that time should not be wasted, 

 or left to the will and caprice of workmen ; and rules were organized 

 to control and regulate an orderly application of the labour, by 

 which alone a due progress could be made. In the payment of 

 labour, many salutary improvements have taken place ; among the 

 foremost of which, I should esteem that of its being made at regular 

 and stated periods and in ready money. The system by which pro- 

 3 I) 2 prietors 



