390 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



the ores or of their value, by which his rent rises and falls with the 

 prices. In Wales only, the practice exists of taking a fixed sum 

 on the ton of ore, whatever its price may be; and it is easy to see 

 how differently this must press, whether it has to be deducted from 

 18/. or from 9/. High prices too which are hardly likely to exist again, 

 have induced a high rate of payment. I am persuaded that the 

 lords will at some time find it to their advantage to consider this 

 question, and particularly with a reference to the competition in 

 the lead market by the Spanish miners, who pay but five per cent, 

 upon their produce ; while in parts of this country, the royaltj^ ab- 

 sorbs from a fourth to a fifth of the gross value. One common inte- 

 rest will unite lords and adventurers to support establishments so im- 

 portant to themselves and to national industry: what is the interest 

 of the one is really and truly that of the other; and I am persuaded, 

 from the result of my experience, that when a different view has 

 been taken of the subject, it has arisen from a want of enlarged and 

 liberal understanding of the matter. If the improvements and prin- 

 ciples to which I have alluded are important and valuable, allow 

 me to express my opinion that this part of the principality offers 

 a most promising field for their development and application. 

 Though honoured in this enviable manner by your notice, I am 

 comparatively but a stranger among you, and my knowledge of the 

 district may be considered as but incomplete ; but I have found my 

 first impressions respecting it to be confirmed by further acquaint- 

 ance. Many of the lead mines in other parts of Great Britain are 

 much exhausted, and appear to afford i'ew chances of much further 

 discovery. Here you possess an immense tract of unexplored and 

 promising ground to which the improved practice of mining is ap- 

 plicable. Other parts are burdened with heav}' charges of land 

 carriage; — your means are as it were at the doors of the first 

 port of the world; they are placed in a fertile country, with cheap 

 and abundant fuel and excellent roads, and you have an able and 

 hardy race of men, who have shown themselves capable of every 

 exertion that mining requires, and who will perceive in time, as 

 many already do, that the discipline which at first seemed irksome, 

 is intended for the common good ; and that it must be the true in- 

 terest of their employers to encourage industry and regularity of 

 conduct, inasmuch as it is essential to the success of their under- 

 takings. It is painful, with such hopes and prospects, to see them 

 clouded and blighted by circumstances over which we have no con- 

 trol, and which we cannot appreciate so as to contemplate their 

 progress and results ; but a patient prudence and a well directed 

 ceconomj' are powerful enough to overcome manj' difficulties. The 

 caus'es of our present privations are probably complicated, and I 

 will not attempt to enter upon them : but if our production be, as 

 it probably is, one principal cause, sound discretion will point out to 

 us not to press an overloaded market with an article to be disposed 

 of at ruinous prices, which, being withheld for a time, may meet a 

 ready and profitable sale ; it will suggest to us not to exhaust our 

 mines in periods of depression, so as to have the work of discovery 



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