I.—4a.

3

page 64, which I have marked, it is shown that when the first French emigrants are unsuccessful at mining they turn to other pursuits and engage in them with success. They had been taught, and remembered how, to grow the vine, and at this time the wine industry, originated by French people of California, represents more than 30,000,000 gallons annually. As with, wine-making so with gardening : the French grow vegetables and fruits for the mining people, and the crops have been so large that they have largely gone into the canning industry. The fruit industry of California is now worth $15,000,000 a year. In the Sacramento Plains they have supplied the mining camps with fresh provisions. In dairy-farming the French have done a great deal by introducing many processes of fabrication unknown to Anglo-Saxons. Every kind of French cheese is manufactured in California. You produce very good cheese here, some particularly good at Gore, in the south, but you have no variety. If you were to go to America you would find from twenty to twenty-five varieties of cheese at San Francisco. Any kind of cheese made in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, or France is made there quite as good as, sometimes better than, in the original country. I might mention the Camembort cheese, which is very largely imported from Normandy to Bussia, in my opinion the best cheese in tho world. This Camembert cheese is made by old miners of California, and is excellent. I might also mention the Gruyere, which is now vey much demanded in Melbourne, to which place a great quantity of it is imported from Europe. There is nothing to prevent New Zealand doing the same, as it has similar resources. It would be better for this colony if you could manufacture these varieties here. You would be sure of a market, for those varieties from Europe cannot very well stand the Equator. A great many industries have been established by tho French on a large scale. I have marked different pages in this book, showing the number of Frenchmen living in California from 1849 to 1856, and the amount of capital they possessed, proving that the French, after the English, were the best class of immigrants that came to California at the beginning. I have also marked passages showing the large sums of money lost by fires, which shows that if these French people could lose so much from such a cause they must have something to lose. But, what is more important, it is shown in page 113 that from 1850 to 1870 —as I have before said —more than a hundred million of francs, that is, more than four million pounds sterling, have been invested by the French there in mining speculation and enterprises. This book gives many other details of information about the French, and what they have done in California, and the creation by them of industries of all sorts. There are three French banks in San Francisco—the Oomptoir d'Escompte de Paris, the London, Paris, and American Bank, andßellocand Co. French capital has been usually invested in mining in the first instance, but soon after it was invested in many other directions—mainly agricultural; and it may be said that nearly all the French industries in California have been created by French people, who, having not succeeded in milling, have tried other means of living. From 1870 to 1884 more than £2,000,000 have been invested by the French in copper-fields in Lower California, and some very powerful syndicates have invested a million more in the neighbouring Status. I can state from my own knowledge that while I was in America almost every month brought there some French engineer sent by some bank or capitalist to report about some mine. Many of the mines in California—not only gold mines, but silver and mercury mines, and the copper mines of Arizona—are worked with French capital. I think this book will show you that the French in California are not bad colonist-:. In California, when unsuccessful at mining, they indeed turned to other pursuits, but, as a whole, they have been successful as miners. In other parts of the United States of America the French mining industry is very important. I may mention Colorado, Oregon, and Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, where they can be met. They have been as early as 1856 in British Columbia and the Alaska territories. When America bought Alaska from Bussia, French prospectors went there. There is a very largo amount of capital invested in copper mines all over North America. In Canada there is the Compagnie Francaiae dcs Mines dOr de la Riviere Moose. Only recently a very large French company have started in Mexico. The Rothschilds, of Paris, are interested in that undertaking, and there is nearly £ 1,000,000 invested in it. French companies and capital, it will be seen, are not confined to the United States and North America ; they are found also in Central and South America. I may mention, for instance, the French Gold Company of Costa Rica, of which Messrs. Lescaune and Perdouso are the principals; two French companies in Honduras; in the Columbian Republic, La Compagnie dcs Mines dOr d'Antoguia ;in the Ecuador Bepublic, the French Mining Company of Guayaquil; in Guvanne, the French Society de Giseincnts dOr de Dieu Merci; in Brazil, the Company of Ouro Preto (French capital, English management); and other enterprises in the Province of Spirito Sancto. In the. Argentine Republic there are two thousand French miners in the various southern districts. In Peru there is the French Gold-mining Company of lea. In Chili the French miners are very numerous, and, like those in California, have created man)' now industries. In tho Dominican Bepublic there is a French exploitation of auriferous sand. In Northern Europe French enterprises have developed great mineral wealth. You meet them in Norway, where there has been, since 1872, La Compagnie Fraiu-aiso dcs Mines de Phosphate de Bamble; also in Sweden, in iron mines and works. In the South of Europe, French miners are busy in Spain—at Almeira, Mercury mines; at Burgos, la Compagnie Miniere Francaise, de la Province de Murcie. In Greece there is a French company at Laurium (silver). The last quotation of these shares show a value of £21 a share, £20 paid up, the amount of dividend being £1 ss. on the Paris Bourse. I have heard lately that the new French gold-mining enterprises, Transylvania (?), are very successful. In Africa the French mining enterprises have been successful: in Algeria, at Moc-kta-el-Hadid, tho shares, £20 paid up, being now 7 worth £32, and they have mining works on the shores of the Congo and Niger Rivers. Two great companies are working in the Cape Colony —(1) Compagnie Generate dcs Diamands, (2) les Diamants dv Cap. French miners are in the South African Republic, near Pretoria. In Asia tho field of French mining enterprise is noticeable. Extensive goldfields have been discovered in Siberia by the celebrated French engineer, M. Joseph Martin, and French capital has been largely invested in them —namely, in the Mines dOr do Miass. I know M. Joseph