CO882-(2-3) — Page 79

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TIC.O.

882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

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expenses. Wages and salaries remained unpaid, and partly from this, and partly no doubt from other causes, the supply of labour necessary to carry on the works was reduced to a minimum.

18. The Administrator of the Government, writing in February of that year, reports favourably on the condition of the mines, and says, that the manager could raise 2,000 tons per month if he could but restore confidence. (Despatch No. 4 of 2nd February, 1867).

Before long, however, affairs assumed a more unfavourable aspect.

The want of money continued. After the B pit had been sunk to a depth of 35 fathoms a quantity of water was encountered. It was one of those difficulties that are incidental to all mining operations, and it only required sufficient mechanical power to remedy it.

Bnt the small winding engine of 12-horse power at work on the spot was insufficient for the purpose, and though there was in store a pumping-engine of 80-horse power (i.e., a pair of engines of 40-horse power each) the embarrassment of affairs arising from the want of money and labour prevented any measures being taken to place it, and the further sinking of this important pit was consequently suspended. Water also had got into the A pit, and in April all the works had stopped. (See despatch No. 11 of 19th April, 1867).

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In May, however, the A pit was again reported in good order; during the half year ending 24th June, 1,927 tons were raised; and in August preparations appear to have been made for working the outcrop of the Gowrie Mines.

19. But by this time Mr. Sinclair had been dismissed by the Directors, the affairs of the Company were becoming more and more embarrassed, and in January 1868 Governor Hennessy reported that, practically, the mining operations might be considered "to have almost ceased," that there were no funds to meet the expenses, and that the credit of the Company was quite gone.

In a subsequent despatch (No. 12 of 6th March, 1868), he reported that, in spite of financial difficulties, the works appeared in a sound condition, that the A pit had been thoroughly repaired, that the coal opened near the surface (Gowrie Mines) was very abundant, and that the manager, Mr. Morel, was generally maintaining the existing works, so as to be fit for a more extended business when the Company should be reconstructed.

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In March or April the mines were transferred to the Oriental Coal Company and, in May, Mr. Lumsden, the manager of the new Company, arrived in the island.

20. I have entered into these details, because they are necessary to show the position which awaited the present Company when they came into possession of the mines in the early part of 1868.

21. I do not think it can be said that this position was an unfavourable one,

The A pit was reported as "thoroughly repaired." It must however be observed that there was a question, if the pit was not so ruined by injudicious workings as to be no longer depended upon as that permanent source of supply for which it had been intended, but there appears to have been no doubt entertained that it was still capable of yielding a large quantity of coal. The air pit attached to it was in good working order, and capable of yielding coal.

The Gowrie mines had been recently opened, and promised a ready supply of surface coal, easy of output.

Lastly, the B pit, though the work bad been suspended, and the pit remained full of water, had been successfully sunk to one-third of its required depth. A powerful pumping engine was in store which once placed would not only soon remove the existing water, but effectually prevent any future stoppage from the like cause.

If this should be done, and the work so well begun by Mr. Sinclair, recommenced, there were the strongest reasons for believing that, in no long time, a most valuable seam of coal would be won, capable of extensive workings and insuring a large and permanent supply of coal.

In addition to these immediate mining prospects, the new Company became possessed of buildings and workshops in good condition, of a large quantity of machinery, of a store room full of goods and materials, evidence of former extravagant expenditure, of a jetty at Coal Point, of lighters, boats, buoys and moorings, and of a small stock in hand of 4,000 tons of coal.

Of this property and of these prospects the Company became possessors for the small purchase price, it is said, of between 7,0001. and 8,0007., a sum which in no degree represented the value of the goods, and material found in store.

This statement may well be credited, when it is considered that the pumping engine alone to which I have referred, had not long before cost in England 3,5001

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22. Such was the position of the new Company when they entered into possession of the mines, in the person of their first manager, on the 20th May, 1868.

23. It remains to be seen what use they have made of this position, and this will be best shown by the results of their operations during the three years ended May 1871.

24. The first result of Mr. Lumsden's operations was the working out-I do not know that he exhausted it-of that supply of coal which was to be obtained in the workings of the air pit. In order to forward the working of this pit, he also sunk a lesser pit in connection with it to supply it with air designed, that is to say, to be of the same service to the air pit that this latter had been designed for in respect of the A pit.

The A pit he seems to have worked at the same time, though not for its resources, for he raised no coal from it, but as an outlet to drain off water from the air-pit.

He used, in fact, the A pit simply as a means to work the air pit. It is possible that be found he could turn the A pit to no better purpose. I know not how this may have been. I simply record the use he made of it.

Applying himself then to working the air-pit he obtained from it altogether 6,997 tons of coal, from May 1868 to August 19, 1870, when he abandoned it, and the A pit to the water. Thus, in August 1870, these two pits were abandoned after the very inconsiderable quantity of 6,997 tons had been obtained from one of them.

25. In the meantime Mr. Lumsden had turned his attention to that other supply of coal which was to be gained in the surface workings of the Gowrie mines. These he had found recently opened. He prosecuted and extended the working of their resources with energy, and obtained from them during the three years of his management a total of 10,708 tons.

It is said that he did not leave these mines in good order, but this may possibly have been due to accidental circumstances.

26. Such was the main extent of his operations. With respect to the B pit, which it will be remembered was left unfinished, after it had been sunk to a depth of 35 fathoms, Mr. Lumsden appears to have taken certain preliminary steps with a view to the renewal of the work of sinking it. Some obstacles it would seem he encountered from the dislocations of the hill above, coming down on the engine and boiler sites, necessitating the removal of earth and the formation of new foundations. In December 1870 he was building culverts to carry off the surface water from these sites. In January. 1871 he removed the former wood lining at the top of the pit, and built it with brick to the depth of 13 feet, and he subsequently commenced the construction of a chimney which at the time of his departure was 20 feet high, and put up one (or two) of four boilers. But so little real progress during those three years had been made towards the renewal of this important work that when Mr. Gray the new manager arrived on the 28th June, 1871, he found these very first preliminary preparations necessary to continue it incomplete. The engine was not yet put up; the four boilers had been only half built in; the chimney had to be raised from 30 feet to 80 feet; the pit head frame was only just commenced, and it was not until the 25th November that he was in a position to raise the water which had occasioned the stoppage of the work in February 1867.

27. It is impossible, I think, to draw any other conclusion than that the results of the Company's operations during their three years' tenure of the mines, ended May or June 1871, were most unsatisfactory and inadequate:

28. Two pits had been abandoned after less than 7,000 tons of coal had been obtained from one of them. The surface workings of Gowrie mines had, indeed, been prosecuted with energy; but, after all, they had yielded less than 11,000 tons, and their condition for future working had been left by no means satisfactory. And, lastly, with respect to the B pit, which held out the strongest inducements for its early development, so secondary a consideration had been given to it that, as I have above observed, the very first preliminaries for its recommencement were not nearly completed when the new manager arrived.

29. Such being the case would it be even safe to assert that the position of the Company was in any way better in 1871 than it was in 1868?

30. Reading by the light of these facts the statements made by the Directors (letter from Mr. Wood to Mr. Walcott, 22 June, 1871)* at the end of those three years it would seem as if the Directors were unware how largely their operations had partaken of the same fault of surface working which they condemned in their predecessors,

31. They appear even to be unaware of the surface character of the Gowrie mines for they allude to "a large sum which has been required to obtain access to the coals in

a proper manner and to make spaces for the man to work in," in which direction, they say, "considerable progress has been made."

• Inclosure in No. 1.