"Many of the miners and people employed in the gold fields have joined the Volunteers. There is now quite a strong corps of about 100 men, some being Eurasians, but the majority are either English or Italians. Once a year some 'bigwig' comes from Bangalore to review them. There is a sergeant-instructor on the field, and the adjutant comes very frequently to see them drill, etc.
"Round the various large tanks about six or eight miles away from the mines excellent snipe shooting is to be had, and duck and teal are also to be found. Spotted deer and bears are sometimes shot by sportsmen from the mines, but for those one must go further away. The fishing is not considered to be very good, but perhaps those who fish do not know how to set to work. The natives sometimes bring very large tank fish round for sale.
"Driving and riding are not very enjoyable, owing to the terribly bad state of the roads. When the railway to the mines is opened, which it soon will be, I am happy to say, the roads will be better. At present the heavy machinery for the mines, boilers, etc.—sometimes taking sixty bullocks to draw them—cut up the roads dreadfully. These will of course come by rail directly the line is open for traffic. The supplies, vegetables, fruit, etc., come from Bangalore three times a week, each mine keeping a 'Supply boy' (servant), who goes in from Kolar Road (our railway station, seven miles from the mines), and returns the following day. We get mutton and beef from the local butcher, and also good bread from the bakery on the field. Our butter comes from Bangalore, and from there we obtain, peas, potatoes, French beans, tomatoes, cauliflowers, vegetable marrow, and lettuces, and also fruit, such as apples, peaches, grapes, plantains, custard apples, melons, and sometimes pine-apples. Servants on the whole are good. Most of them come from Madras. Wages are much higher on the gold fields than in Bangalore—head butlers, 16 rupees; ayahs, 12 to 14 rupees; chokras, 10 to 11 rupees; cooks, 11 to 14 rupees; and gardeners, 10 to 16 rupees a month. Many of them leave domestic service and take work in the mines, where they get higher wages very often."
As the elevation of Kolar is about 2,700 feet above sea level, the climate is for many months of the year extremely agreeable, and it would, so far as my experience goes, be difficult to find a more exhilarating and more exquisitely-tempered atmosphere than that of Kolar in the month of January—at least such was my conclusion when I stayed with my friends at the field last January. Nor did I hear anyone there complain of the climate, which, from the appearance of my host (who looked as if he had never left England) and others on the mines, must be a very healthy one, and in proof of this I may mention that Mr. Plummer, whom I have previously quoted, told me that the European miners had as good health as miners have in England. Cholera has on several occasions broken out amongst the coolies, but this was rather a proof of the want of attention paid to sanitation and water supply, as none I believe has occurred since an improved water supply has been introduced by all the companies now pumping it up from depths of 200 feet from the bottoms of abandoned shafts. There was a remarkable confirmation of the connection between cholera and water supply and sanitation one year, and the first company which paid attention to these points had no cholera amongst its people, while most of the other mines had more or less of the disease. I may mention here a fact to which I have alluded in my chapter on coffee planting in Mysore—namely, that Europeans in Mysore have been so little liable to cholera that in sixty years there has only been one death from it amongst the European officials of the province, and one doubtful case amongst the planters.
As regards mining and the extraction of gold, there is little to be said. I inspected the works and the rock drills. These work through the agency of compressed air, and at a cost of 15 rupees a day for coal for each drill, the same tool which is used in drilling by hand. It is doubtful whether hand-drilling is not cheaper, but the latter is far slower, and hence does not pay as well, rapid progress being absolutely essential. When working with rock drills, a shaft can be sunk 10 to 20 feet a month, against 7 to 8 feet by hand, and a level may on the average be driven 45 to 50 feet a month by rock drills against 10 or 12 feet by hand. When, however, a large surface for operating on is exposed, hand-drilling may be profitably employed. This is interesting as illustrating the fact that where labour is cheap machines seldom pay, and this is particularly worth mentioning for the benefit of those who have thought that it would be useful to introduce agricultural machinery into India. After looking at the rock drills I inspected the gold extraction works. The processes here need not detain us long. The quartz is first broken by stone-breakers like those used in England. The broken stone is then placed in an iron trough (battery box), and is pounded by iron stampers, which of course are worked by machinery. In front of this trough is a fine sieve. Water is incessantly run into the trough, and as it overflows, carries with it all the quartz which has been pounded sufficiently to pass through the sieve. The water, mingled with this finely powdered quartz, then falls on to a sloping plate of copper coated with quicksilver, which amalgamates with, and so detains, the gold. The deposit thus formed is scraped off the sheets of copper at intervals of about eight hours, and formed into balls of various sizes, which consist of about one-half gold and one-half quicksilver. The latter is subsequently separated from the gold by processes which I need not describe, and the gold is afterwards formed into bars for export.
I inquired particularly as to the rates of wages. These are, for coolies working underground, from 7 to 8 annas a day (with the rupee at par one anna is equal to 1½d., and 8 annas would therefore amount to 1s.). Those who work rock drills in mines, 12 annas to a rupee a day; ordinary coolies working aboveground, 4 to 8 annas; and women, 2 to 4 annas a day. The working population on the field numbers about 10,000, while 20,000 more, who work for varying periods of the year, reside in the neighbouring villages.
I was much struck with the fact that no advances whatever are given to coolies by the companies, as is the case with men working on plantations, and I would particularly call the attention of planters to this, as it proves what I have elsewhere stated—namely, that where labour rises to a comparatively high rate no advances are necessary, and I feel sure that if planters would resolve to reduce gradually the amount of advances, they might ultimately be altogether dispensed with.
My next subject of inquiry relating to labour was as to the probable total amount paid for it, and, from an estimate made for me by a very competent authority residing on the mines, I believe that the following account is substantially correct. The amount of wages paid monthly to native labourers and the small number of Eurasians working on the mines is about 2 lakhs of rupees. To natives who fell and bring in timber for fuel about 80,000 rupees monthly are paid. On quarrying and carting granite, and in building, about 30,000 rupees a month are spent; on the carriage of materials from the railway about 15,000 rupees, and probably from 5,000 to 10,000 rupees on local products such as straw, grain, oil, mats, bamboos, tiles, etc. Now, if we take no account of the last two items, and deduct 10,000 rupees from the second and third, we shall have a fair estimate of three lakhs of rupees a month as the amount spent on the Kolar gold field in wages, which, taking the rupee at par (and I think I am justified in doing so, as for expenditure in India by labourers it goes about as far as it ever did), amounts to £360,000 a year. And this great sum is earned by people who either have land and work for occasional periods of the year on the mines, or by labourers, who, when they have saved enough money from their wages (which they could do with ease in a year), will acquire and cultivate a small holding. A large proportion of this sum of £360,000 a year—probably two-thirds of it—goes to improving the status and condition of the agricultural and labouring classes, and I need hardly add that this not only leads to an improvement of the resources of the State, but enables the people the better to contend with famine and times of scarcity, and thus still further improves the financial condition of the Government. And it is largely in consequence of the great sums brought into Mysore by the planters and the gold companies that the revenues of Mysore are in such a nourishing condition, and that year after year the annual budget presents an appearance more and more favourable.
And here this question naturally arises. What can the Government of Mysore do to stimulate the employment of labour in mining, and thus still further strengthen the financial position of the State? I am prepared to show that it can do much to stimulate the opening of new mines, and also to encourage many of those now in existence which have not as yet been able to pay dividends.
The reader will see by a glance at the map that the auriferous tracts of Mysore (to which I shall presently more particularly allude) are of great extent, and, judging from the report of the geological surveyor employed by the Government, and especially from the existence of numerous old native workings, there is no reason why prizes even greater than the best of those already obtained should not exist. Now one of the greatest obstacles in the way of rapid progress lies in the fact that before mining can be got fairly under weigh much preliminary work has to be done, and the shareholders have therefore a long time to wait before any paying return can be obtained. But if the preliminary work, such as the providing of water, the collection of building materials, and the making of roads, etc., were carried out before a company was formed, mining could be begun at once, and results rapidly arrived at, and the frittering away of money, both in England and India, that at present necessarily occurs, would be averted. Now the country has already been largely explored, and the Government is therefore in a position to know the places where favourable results will probably be obtained, and as the State, besides the other advantages I have previously pointed out, gets a royalty on the gold, it has a natural interest in doing its utmost to select the most favourable sites for new mining operations. Such sites then should, with the aid of experienced mining advisers, be selected by the Government, which itself should execute the preliminary works previously specified, and then advertise the blocks, so selected and prepared, for sale in the London market. For such prepared blocks purchasers could readily be found, and if the price they paid merely covered the bare cost of the preliminary works, the expenditure of capital that would thus be stimulated, with all its consequent direct and indirect advantages to the province, would amply repay the Government for its trouble and outlay.