GUMFIELDS’ COMMISSION.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 203, 23 June 1893, Page 3

GUMFIELDS’ COMMISSION.

The Commission of Enquiry into the northern gumfields is still pushing on its work. It has held sittings at different Darts of the Kaipara and is notified to sit at Toka Toka this morning and To Kopuru to morrow at 11a.m. From the evidence given at the Kaipara. sittingsit appears that the average earnings of diggers lies between 15/- and 25/- while the cost of living is about 10/-. Daniel Stewart, storekeeper, Helensville, deposed that he leased 1,000 acres from the natives at Shelly Beach. Sixteen Austrians were digging on it. They were very industriovis and thrifty, but did not live meanly. They were fine men, very quiet and orderly, but worked longer hours and earned more than the British, and spent about the same at the stores, and eat preserved meat and milk. James Ste-.vart deposed that the Austrians were chiefly bush men, and would do bush felling in preference to gum digging. Thejr made from 30/- to 50/- per week, and their living cost about 10/, Joseph Isbister, storekeeper, said be dealt in gum and supplied men with stores. Diggers get about 25/- worth of gum weekly He met some 30 Austrians at M itakohe about six years ago. They were honest and hard-working. They came from Austria direct and lived together in a sort of village. They said some runaway sailors had made money here, and gone home, and their friends then came out. They wanted to earn enough to buy land at home. Several brought their, wives with thorn. They were chiefly vine cultivators at home. AT PORT ALBERT. AT. Armitage, storekeeper and sum buyer, giving evidence said, the average wages obtained, leaving out the loafing class, is about 25s weekly. He pays diggers 2s over the Auckland price, hut sorts and scrapes the gum, and gains slightly on the good class of gum. Sly grog-selling publicans and wine makers he says ate the only ones who make anything out off gumdigging. AVellsford gum is of better quality than the generality. An export duty would not be felt by most diggers, as two-thirds of them only waste their money, There are only about from 6,000 to 7,000 gumdiggors altogether. Robert Walker, settler and gumdigger said he got on an average SOlbs of gum weekly. When digging- on old fields, supposed to be worked out, regular diggers got only 561 bon average. Cum was. found deeper down, and was not so plentiful as formerly. A tax on baulk timber was more wanted than one on gum, as timber cut up the roads. John Joseph Grogan, a youthful gum digger of 13 years, who had had five years’ exit- said be got about -Jewt of gum weekly, working seven hours per day, and got 25s for the gum, and paid about 12s for food. He signed a petition against the Austrians last week hut the petition was not written out, only the names obtained. Two half-caste diggers concurred in this witness’s remarks.