GOLD MINES IN INDIA.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1591, 26 March 1879, Page 4

GOLD MINES IN INDIA.

The "Bombay Gazette "of the9th January says:—"The evidenoe at present available would seem to indicate that people at home are even more sanguine of the success of gold mining in Southern India than are the people in India, who may be said to be almost within a stone's throw of the scene of operations. Yet, with the recollection fresh in their minds of the losses incurred in 'connection with the undertaking at Kolar, it is somewhat surprising that any one should be now keenly desirous of embarking in a similar speculation. In that case it is well known that the operations resulted in a loss to all concerned, especially to one house of agency in particular, whioh advanced fabulous sums in the upkeep of the works and payment of wages on the faith of brilliant results anticipated, but never realised. The machinery, whioh was of a most costly character, and imported at a high price, has recently been sold at rates which scarcely covered the freight and charges originally incurred upon it, yet this same machinery would unquestionably have been of considerable service to those interested in the present system of operations. Still the speculators in the new gold mines did not purchase it, probably because of an insufficiency of capital at command, and consequently the same things will again have to be imported from home at enormous cost. Taking all these things into consideration, therefore, and the difficulties now likely to be raised in respect to the leases granted by the Baja of Nellambore to the holders of land in South Wynaad, we fear that after all the new enterprise does not furnish such a rioh harvest or so successful a working as would-be speculators appear to anticipate, and all this apart from the question of the cost of importing such skilled labor as we have referred to in a previous article. The prospect is, therefore, not so brilliant as recent reports would lead us to believe, and it would be well, perhaps, if people were to closely scrutinise the nature of the new investment ere they commit themselves to becoming shareholders in a concern which in the end may have to share the fate of its predecessor at Kolar, in the Mysore territory.