Getting Gold: A Gold-Mining Handbook for Practical Men

by J. C. F. Johnson

It is now very generally agreed that to the profitable development of mining, new countries at all events must look mainly for prosperity while other industries are growing. Therefore, we cannot too seriously consider how we may soonest make our mines successful.

What is the remedy for the unsatisfactory state of affairs we have experienced? The answer is a more practical system of working from the inception. Although it may evoke some difference of opinion I consider it both justifiable and desirable that the State should take some oversight of mining matters, at least in the case of public Companies. It would be a salutary rule that the promoters of any mining undertaking should, before they are allowed to place it on the market, obtain and pay for the services of a competent Government Mining Inspector, who need not necessarily be a Government officer, but might, like licensed surveyors, be granted a certificate of competency either by a School of Mines or by some qualified Board of Examiners. The certificate of such Inspector that the property was as represented should be given before the prospectus was issued. It is arguable whether even further oversight might not properly be taken by the State, and the report of a qualified officer be compulsory that the property was reasonably worth the value placed upon it in the prospectus.

Probably it will be contended that such restrictions would be an undue interference with private rights, and the old aphorism about a fool and his folly will be quoted. There are doubtless fools so infatuated that if they were brayed in a ten hundred-weight stamp battery the foolishness that had not departed from them would give a highly payable percentage to the ton. Yet the State in other matters tries by numerous laws to protect such from their folly. A man may not sell a load of wood without the certificate from a licensed weighbridge nor a loaf of bread without, if required, having to prove its weight; and we send those to gaol who practice on the credulity and cupidity of fools by means of the “confidence trick.” Why not, therefore, where interests which may be said to be national are involved, endeavour to ensure fair dealing?

Then with regard to the men who are to manage our mines, seeing that a man may not become captain or mate of a river steamboat without some certificate of competency, nor drive her engines before he has passed an examination to prove his fitness, surely it is not too much to say that the mine manager or engineer, to whose care are often confided the lives of hundreds of men, and the expenditure of thousands of pounds, should be required to obtain a recognised diploma to prove his qualifications. The examinations might be made comparatively easy at first, but afterwards, when by the establishment of Schools and Mines the facilities have been afforded for men to thoroughly qualify, the standard should be raised; and after a date to be fixed no man should be permitted to assume the charge of a mine or become one of its officers without a proper certificate of competency from some recognised School of Mines or Technical College. The effect of such a regulation would in a few years produce most beneficial results.

In New Zealand, whose “progressive” legislature I do not generally commend, they have, in the matter of mine management, at all events, taken a step in the right direction. There a mine manager, before he obtains his certificate, must have served at least two years underground, and has to pass through a severe examination, lasting for days, in all subjects relating to mining and machinery connected with mining. In addition, he must prove his capacity by making an underground survey, and then plotting his work. The examination is a stiff one, as may be judged from the fact that between 1886 and 1891, only 27 candidates passed. Then the conditions were made easier, and from that date to 1895, 19 passed. Of the 46 students who gained first-class honours, 30 have left for South Africa or Australia, in both of which countries New Zealand certificated men are held in high estimation.

The result of the establishment of our own School of Mines (Plate V.) has been to raise the standard of the mine officer, whether manager, assayer, engineer, or “underground boss,” and our graduates have small difficulty in obtaining positions both in the states of the Commonwealth and in South Africa. The building alone cost nearly £40,000, of which £15,000 was donated by the Hon. George Brookman, a successful mining man. The mining and metallurgical courses extend over a period of four years. There are also facilities for students to gain higher qualifications, viz., the Fellowship in Mining, Metallurgy, Mechanical Engineering, or Electrical Engineering. The School works in conjunction with the Adelaide University, each institution teaching the subjects for which it is specially qualified.

But returning to the formation of the Company, care should be taken in appointing Directors that at least one member of the Board is selected on account of his special technical knowledge of mining, and others for their special business capacity. The ornamental men with high-sounding names should not be required in legitimate ventures. Also, it is most important that the business Manager or Secretary should be a thoroughly qualified man, who by experience has learned what are the requirements of a mine doing a certain amount of work, so that a proper check may be kept on the expenses. The more Companies such a Secretary has in hand the better, as one qualified man can supervise a large staff of clerks, who would themselves be qualifying for similar work, and gaining a useful and varied experience of mining business. An office of this description having charge of a large number of mines is, in its way, a technical school, and lads trained therein would be in demand as mine pursers, a very responsible and necessary officer in a big mine.

With respect to the men to whom the actual mining and treatment of ores and machinery is committed the greatest mistakes of the past have been that too much has been required from one man. The Mining Manager has been expected to be a miner, metallurgist, engineer, and business man, a combination not to be found probably in one man in a thousand. Such Admirable Crichtons are rare in any profession or business, and that of mining is no exception. Men who profess too much are to be distrusted. Your best men are they who concentrate their energies and intellects in special directions. The Mining Manager should, if possible, be chosen from men holding certificates of competency from some technical mining school and, of course, should, in addition, have some practical experience, not necessarily as Head Manager. He should understand practical mine surveying and calculation of quantities, be able to dial and plot out his workings, and prepare an intelligible plan thereof for the use of the Directors, and should understand sufficient of physics, particularly pneumatics and hydraulics, to ensure thoroughly efficient pumping operations without loss of power from unnecessarily heavy appliances. Any other scientific knowledge applicable to his business which he may have acquired will tell in his favour, but he must, above all things, be a thoroughly practical man. Such men will in time be more readily procurable, as students who have passed through the various Schools of Mines will be sent to learn their business practically at the mines just as we now, having given a lad a course of naval instruction, send him to sea to learn the practical part of his life’s work.