DOES GOLD MINING- PAY?

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 273, 24 April 1873, Page 3

DOES GOLD MINING- PAY?

(' * South Austvalivn Chronicle")

The old, the very old question, does gold-mining pay ? has turned up again this week, and it must be of some interest now in South Australia, where there is so much talk about fresh goldfield discoveries. The late President of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce was last until the present time of writing to hold out the " red rag " to the bull on this subject, and now it is the celebrated novelist, Mr. Anthony Trollope. That gentleman roundly affirms — wherever he got his informafrom—that every ounce of gold raised in Australia has cost £5 to £5 1 0s. per ounce, its market value being £3 155.. and this has evoked no small discussion on the goldfields. Of course, Mr. Trollope's right to be considered an authority on this subject, is stoutly questioned, and whoever ventures to assert, as he does, that all our gold is raised at a greater price than it fetches in the market, should prepared to show admitting that to be the case, to what else the gold-producing colonies owe their advancement. It is contended, on the other side, that although in individual cases there have doubtless been great losses, there must have been immense profits in the long run, when all is taken into the account. Even with the largely increased cost of raising gold now, itis argued there must be great profits, or the pursuit would be abandoned. An attempt has been made to answer Mr. Trollope, by saying that he does not discriminate between a loss to the individual, and a loss to society. For instance, a man might earn £5, or even £50, at something else, while be was raising an ounce of gold, worth only £3 15s. But this is all fanciful, and mere hair .splitting. There is something more tangible to be dealt with in the progress of these colonies since gold was first discovered in them. If they do not owe the quarter part of their progress to that, it is not unnaturally j asked to what else do they owe it ? Notwithstanding these arguments, I have beard it admitted by old residents in Ballarat that every ounce of gold raised in that place has cost ('if averaged) £6, and if the enormous amounts sunk in some of their larger undertakings be taken into account there seems a fair show of reason for the assertion. One large Company might be mentioned, in which at present the shareholders have nothing to show for an outlay of £80,000, and these <md all the other losses of the goldfields must have benn taken from the profits of other industries, which were to some extent dependent on the goldfields population! : The interdependence of one industry upon another, and one class upon another, is probably the true answer to the problem of how the country has continued to flourish while its gold has cost more to raise than it could be sold for.