acquainted, perhaps, with the nature of the ore to be crushed, to saddle them with expensive mining-plants before the reef is opened up, is likely to be at least as ruinous to the prospector, who has parted with his lease, possibly, for valueless shares, as to the London investor who is loudest in his abuse. The only safety, for all parties concerned, lies in the combination of a Board which knows something of business with efficient local supervision. Mining, altogether, is an extraordinary industry. But almost more extraordinary than the ignorance of London Boards, and the recklessness of British investors, is the haphazard way in which engineers and managers are selected. And one's ordinary calculations as to human motives and conduct are sometimes quite upset by the unscrupulous calm with which an incapable, inexperienced, careless, drunken, or dishonest manager will sacrifice the hundreds of thousands (may-be) of his company's capital to his own petty advantage, or to secure another quarter's payment, perhaps, of his salary of £500 a year. It is far easier, and often more immediately profitable, to mutilate than to make a mine. On the other hand, it is not, perhaps, so generally understood as it might be, that under the conditions of mining in Western Australia, £30,000 for developing, or £50,000 for equipping, a mine, is by no means too large an allowance of working capital.
But, if there have been many failures in mining ventures in Western Australia, there have also been extraordinary successes. During my stay in Australia a company was wound-up by voluntary liquidation; or, to speak more accurately, the winding-up was completed, for the assets were so huge that it had taken more than a year to conduct the operation. Its history reads like a version of the "Arabian Nights Entertainments," and is a justification of the sanguine hopes that the deserts of West
