Queensland’s reliance on mining has remained the same for more than 150 years. The theme of crippling costs is also recurring.
We know that these days, costs are hindering the development of leases held with junior miners despite the record high gold price.
The Queenslander reported similar pressure across the board in its Saturday, June 30, 1877 edition.
“The subject thus raised is of such immense importance to the mining population, and by consequence to the colony at large, that it seems advisable to keep it before the public,” the report said.
“The mining industry of Queensland is at present the main support of the colony (Sound familiar?-Ed). If we consider the number of men employed in all our different mines—coal, copper, tin, antimony, and gold —we perceive at once that it employs a population greater by far than any other single industry in the colony, and that its produce heads the list of our exports.
“Yet there are signs visible even now which tell us plainly that unless the present methods of working can be altered and cheapened, many mines must go out of work, and this important industry gradually dwindle to proportions far smaller than its present ones.
“Tin is now selling in England for less than one half of the price it realised in 1872, when our tin mines first came into work, in fact, the metal in ingots is now sold in the English market for less than was at one time paid for stream tin on the mines.
“Copper has also fallen in price, though not to such an extent as tin, and the result is shown in the fact that the two principal mines in Queensland are threat ening to suspend operations at no very distant date.
“The Peak Downs Mine is, we believe, likely to be handed over to a new company, the old one being wound up; and at Mount Perry we have been informed that under orders from the directors of that company all works of exploration have been discontinued, and that the existing reserves of ore must therefore be soon exhausted.”
Courtesy Trove
