THE TRIBUTE SYSTEM.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2022, 28 June 1875, Page 2

THE TRIBUTE SYSTEM.

' To'the Editor of the Evening Star. Sib, —With .your kind permiision I will trouble you once more. I perceive in your issue 'of Saturday; last T metle more attractive in the shape of a defender of tributo ;»ystem in your own" mining reporter. -- Why he should take up the gloves I cannot conceive! but" as he hag done so, I ask him in all fairness to read my No. 1 letter again, and he will th«n perceive that it was the system and manner in which it appears to be carried out that I condemn, and only brought in the latest instances, the Windsor Castle) the Black Angel, and Mr Wingate's name to substantiate the singular fact, I. laid down of claims that.were call-paying; while in the hands of the shareholders becoming good paying claims in the hands of the Tributers, .although having the same men at .work. I did not intend to be personal, and Mr .Wingate's name only, was mentioned in consequence of my having to refer to the mining report iv the Advertiser. : ;.Hqvrever, if it is true as he says (and I suppose it must be, or he would not haye 1 said so), that Mr Wingate has only had one wages man employed, I think he must have been doing a pretty tidy stroke since he began; that is according to the. returns that are publicly known. As for the manager and directors, I suppose they can answer satisfactorily any questions that may. be put to them by the shareholders,, and the shareholders can look carefully over their last balance sheet. But. for. his vindication of the Black Angel in particular, I. should not have gone into this matter; 1 and, notwithstanding his assertion to the contrary, I have yet to learn how it is that a claim cannot be as economically worked while in the hands of a company as when in the hands of tributers. However, if such is the fact, I can only say the sooner the call-paying community button up their pockets, the better it will be for them. Now, Mr Editor, feeling myself rather overweighted when pitted against your own mining reporter," and having neither time, inclination, standing or ability, to continue this contest alone, as no other aggrieved shareholder seems to come forward, I beg to retire into my shell; more than ever convinced that I was pretty near'the mark in the remarks of a Poor Deluded Shareholder.