46 COGGIN BROWN : MINES & MINERAL RESOURCES OF Vl'NNAN. 



He states that " a great deal of illicit mining is carried on by the 

 people, and the officials are afraid of the consequences of asserting 

 their rights despotically. A plan has, however, been devised of buying 

 up the copper privately mined by the natives at a low price and 

 thus taking advantage of the extra labour by a measure at once 

 profitable and popular. In this way the memorialist thinks that the 

 mines will work well, and will give no cause for the intrusion of 

 outsiders." The rescript merely orders the Board of Revenue to 

 " take note." 



In a postscript memorial the Director informs the Emperor 

 that " ten thousand catties of copper are bought monthly from the 

 illicit workers of the private mines, and that the labourers arc not 

 paid wages, but; are supplied with oil and rice. 55 In conclusion, he 

 describes the whole state of the mines as " highly satisfactory." 



It is not every day that an official of the rank of Governor offi- 

 cially informs an Emperor that the laws of the Empire are con- 

 stantly and deliberately violated by large numbers of persons' with 

 whom the magistrates dare not interfere, but whom, on the other 

 hand, they mollify with oil, rice, and a sum of money sufficient 

 to induce them to part with their stolen copper ; and that in con- 

 sequence of this defiance of the Emperor's and his officials, the con- 

 dition of the Emperor's mines is "highly satisfactory. 55 No wonder 

 the Board of Revenue was invited to " take note. 55 



A small proportion of the population of Yunnan undoubtedly 



m ,„ . . regards mining as its hereditary occupation and 



The Chinese miner. . , . ° . . . r . 



its professional Spirit is kept alive by the 



various guilds and secret societies, which, with the strong ties of 



family life, unite the fabric of the lower classes of the country. 



But the great majority of the miners are drawn from the poorest 



ranks of the agricultural community. They are members of 



peasant families who cannot make a living on the ancestral farms 



owing to overcrowding or some other cause, or else they are 



aborigines drawn from one or other of the numerous mountain 



tribes. 



The lot of the average miner in Yunnan is a most miserable one. 



He is usually engaged to work for a stated time at a rate of pay 



barely sufficient to permit him to exist. As a rule he is supplied 



with a daily ration of rice by his master, who also finds lamps, 



timber, tools and mining gear. Both master-miner and coolie are 



alike subject to the tyranny of rapacious money-lenders. There 



