In the cobbed state ready for market the ore is worth at the mines at the present time from 50 dollars to 55 dollars for No. 2, and from 80 dollars to 100 dollars for No. 1. It is evident, therefore, on a comparison of the cost of extraction with the price realised for the raw material, that there is ample margin for good profit.
Wages run from 1 dollar to 1 dollar 75 cents a day, according to the nature of the work performed, for men, and from 50 cents to 1 dollar for lads and cobbers. The comparison of the cost of production, therefore, with the value of the raw material, shows a very large margin of profit.
There is no scarcity of labour, a sufficient number of hands, mostly French-Canadians, being always forthcoming; but at those mines where there is an insufficiency of houses for married men, accommodation has to be found in the barrack-like building for single men; the married men, who cannot be accommodated, residing frequently at a long distance from their work, which causes them to be of a migratory disposition, and gives considerable additional trouble to the management.
A disadvantage in the employment of French-Canadian labour lies in the great number of festivals incident to their religion, with consequent loss of work at the mines, but apparently there is no remedy for this at present. The greatest curse of the place, however, is gin. Although the district is under the Scott Act, and the sale of liquor consequently prohibited, like every other place where the sale is interdicted there is no difficulty, if you know how to go about it, sometimes even if you don't, in getting as much as you please. At any rate I never yet was in any such place where I did not find it to be so.
Here is an instance: On one occasion I had been out driving in the pouring rain for several hours, had got drenched to the skin, and was bitterly cold. I pulled up, therefore, at a likely-looking house, went in and called for some brandy, but to my disgust was told no liquors could be supplied, as it was against the law. As I turned to go out again, in no very cheerful mood, the man, seeing the state I was in, evidently took compassion on me, and said, "Better try some bitters;" so calling to mind the old saying that all bitters are warm barring a bitter cold day, which only proves the rule, I assented. He then pushed over a tumbler and a black bottle, when I at once poured out and swallowed a pretty strong dose, feeling when I had done so as if I had swallowed a streak of forked lightning. As soon as I had recovered my breath I muttered my thanks and paid up. "Have another?" says he, with a twinkle in his eye. "No, thanks;" I replied. "Guess you'll remember our bitters," he then laughingly said, prefixing the name of the place, which I afterwards found was in a district where prohibition was very strictly enforced, and which I therefore purposely omit, his breach of the law having no doubt saved me from the dangerous effects of a chill.
The hip pockets in the men's pants form very convenient receptacles for the bottles, and are always pretty well filled after pay days and holidays. The liquor most in favour is a vile compound called gin. It is supplied in the regular square Dutch bottles from the familiar green-painted boxes in which "Hollands" is exported, and which are labelled "De Kuyper;" but the vile stuff is not much credit to that gentleman's manufacture if it be so, which is much to be doubted.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Ante, p. 13.
[5] "Geol. Hist. Can.," 1880.
[6] See ante, p. 12.