INDUSTRIES 



and bounder. Here we have the same gradations 

 as exist at present, and here, moreover, we find 

 the germs of the cost-book system. The produce 

 is shared out in ' doles,' and a proportionate 

 division made of the charges. 1 Instead of divi- 

 dends each adventurer had his share of black 

 tin, after the payment of toll, and each man 

 carried his share to the blowing-house, and, after 

 coinage, sold the white tin either to the London 

 merchants or to the wealthier tinners. 



Carew's account is preceded by that of Beare 

 in 1586. He begins by enumerating the various 

 classes of stannary workers. There are the char- 

 coal pedlars, who go from blowing-house to 

 blowing-house with their packs. 2 There were 

 the blowers 3 and the owners of blowing-houses. 

 There were smiths, carpenters, and other artisans 

 employed about the mines, and, finally, the miner 

 himself. ' The most part of the workers of the 

 black tyn and spaliers are very poor men, and, 

 no doubt, that occupation can never make them 

 rich, and chiefly such tyn workers as have no 

 bargain, but only trust to their wages, although 

 they have never so rich a tyn work, for they have 

 no profit of their tyn, if they be hired men, sav- 

 ing only the wages, for their masters have their 

 tyn. Now, if they should chance to be farmers 

 themselves, and their worke fall bad, then run 

 they most chiefly in their master's debt, and 

 likely to incur more and more rather than to 

 requite any part thereof, for of these two choyses, 

 to be a hired man or farmer, the one is a cer- 

 taintie, and the other an uncertaintie. The 

 farmer knoweth not how his work will doe, until 

 tyme that he have proved it, and must needs live 

 in hope all the yere, which for the most part 

 deceiveth him.' 4 



Putting this with what we have learned con- 

 cerning the practice later, and supplying other 

 portions of the manuscript, the situation becomes 

 clear. Many of the mines were worked by 

 groups of miners adventuring in partnership, 6 and 

 these are meant when reference is made to the 

 wealthier sort of tinners who work side by side 

 with the poor spaliard, the latter in this case being 

 the former's hired man. 6 Other mines were 

 farmed in shares by the adventurers to other 

 spaliards, who to all intents worked under the 

 tribute system. If we read on further we find 

 other curious coincidences. There is a captain, 

 and, as at the present day, he represents the ad- 

 venturers with this difference, that instead of 

 being the mere agent of the mine owners, whose 

 duty it was to auction off the shares, he was the 

 chosen head of a body of adventuring miners, 7 

 and assigned to his fellows their pitches for the 

 next term. Beare gives us no hint as to 

 whether there was at this time a captain in the 



1 Carew, A Survey of Cornwall (ed. 181 1), 40. 

 8 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 37. * Ibid. fol. 32-39. 



4 Ibid. fol. 56, 57. 6 Ibid. fol. 6. 



Ibid. fol. 6. 7 Ibid. fol. 58. 



sense that one exists to-day. He states, however, 

 that most of the spaliards work for wages, with 

 the implication that the tribute system was com- 

 paratively limited. 



We have then, first, independent miners work- 

 ing their own mines; secondly, that system 

 under which the adventurers relinquished the 

 actual work to miners on the tribute system, 

 leaving parts of the mines for various percentages 

 of the product ; thirdly, a system was, without 

 doubt, coming in by virtue of which the adven- 

 turers worked their claims, as small entrepre- 

 neurs, with hired labour. 'The tinner,' says 

 Beare, ' in my judgement is he thatgiveth wages 

 by the year to another to work his right in a 

 tinwork for him as a dole, or half dole, more or 

 less, or else works his right himself, as many do.' 8 

 These labourers were paid by the amount of ore 

 excavated, and received part at least of their 

 wages in tin. 9 



The process of transformation, although we 

 cannot trace its various phases distinctly, seems 

 quite clear. The working adventurer has main- 

 tained his standing. Beare refers to him; 10 Carew 

 mentions him in 1602 j 11 his case is dealt with in 

 the stannary laws of partnership ; ls Jars in 1 765 

 speaks of him; 13 and Pryce in 17 78." By the 

 nineteenth century, if not earlier, this class was 

 confined mainly to stream tinners, 15 but it still 

 survives, although in diminished numbers. The 

 cost-book system, as it exists to-day, had its 

 origin in the voluntary association of groups of 

 several of these men, for the purpose of exploiting 

 a mine too large for any to work single-handed. 

 By 1586, however, if not before, there had arisen 

 a class of gentlemen adventurers who, instead of 

 working their shares, let them out to tributers. 

 The latter became in due time small entre- 

 preneurs, as some of the gentlemen adventurers 

 already were, with hired labourers, and this was 

 the prevailing method when Jars wrote. But 

 by that time the labourer in turn had begun to 

 improve his position, and accordingly we find 

 him in the latter part of the eighteenth century 

 superseding his erstwhile employer, and taking 

 up the tribute system on his own account. 

 Finally the hired labourer, or 'spalier,' who in 

 Beare's time was probably, as when Jars wrote, 

 employed to open a mine, gradually advanced from 

 time wages to piece wages, and by 1778 to tut 

 work. 



Other classes of tinners remain to be noted. 

 We find in Cornwall two groups of middlemen, 



8 Ibid. 6380, fol. 6. 



Lansd. MS. 76, fol. 34. Doddridge, Hist. ofCornto. 



94. 95- 



10 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 6. 



11 Carew, Survey of 'Cornwall '(ed. 1811), 30-34. 

 " Convoc. Cornw. 22 Jas. I, c. 19. 



13 Jars, Voyages Meiatturgifuet, iii, 10. 



14 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 178. 

 16 Literary Panorama, iii, 1238-1241. 



557 



