Page:VCH Cornwall 1.djvu/660

 A HISTORY OF CORNWALL say nothing of many others, 1 is one of great antiquity. It certainly existed in 1778, for it is described at that time by Pryce. ' Mining,' he says, ' is so expensive and uncertain that few Cornish mines are carried on at the risk of one or two persons. Many partners are united ; four, ten, sixteen, twenty-four, or thirty-two in number.' 2 He then describes the meetings of these companies, the familiar cost-book system being the one almost invariably employed, and the funds of the adventurers being vested in a purser, as we have seen. ' Deep and chargeable mines are carried on by persons of fortune or great skill, but shallow mines are occupied indifferently by such, or by the labouring miners, and, frequently, by both.' 3 He then proceeds to speak of the wages system. ' It is a good and customary way 4 for the owners to set their dead ground, either in or out of the lode, to be sunk, driven, sloped, or cut down by the fathom, but if there is no choice in respect to saving the ore drawn, or the like, they set it to be sunk. . . upon tut that is, a piece or part of unmeasured ground by the lump for such price as can be agreed upon ; ' and from the same pas- sage we learn that, as at present, the work was done by a small gang of workmen who supplied their own tools and materials. When the lode had been tapped two methods again might be used. The ore might be broken by the fathom,' or, secondly, by the tribute system, only instead of being simply a matter of bargain between workmen's gangs and the adventurers, it was more complex. First to be noted is the fact that tin works were often given over to a single tributer. 6 ' Adventurers very often lease a mine on tribute. Some miner takes the mine of the adventurers for a determined time that is, for half a year, a whole year, or seven years. If it is a tin mine he articles, first, to pay the lord his share or dole free of all cost. . . This must be such a proportion of all the tin-stuff as shall be raised during the limited time. Of the remainder he pays the adventurers one moiety, or one-fourth part, according to the agreement, it being more or less in proportion to the richness of the mine.' Often also the tributer was associated with several others, who clubbed together to provide the neces- sary capital for machinery and wages. 7 More commonly, especially in the larger works, the mine was divided into pitches, as at present, and auctioned off to small gangs. 8 We may draw from these facts the conclusion that the entire mining system was undergoing a transition. The gentlemen adventurers were 1 ' The Economy of Mining,' English's Quart. Mining Rev. iv, 266 ; Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (ed. 4), 307. 2 Pryce, Minerabgia Cornubiensis, 173. 3 Ibid. 174. Mbid. 1 80. 6 Ibid. 175, 180. 6 Ibid. 187. 'Ibid. 1 88. 'Ibid. 189. gradually ceasing to work their mines, and giving them to small masters on tribute. But the small masters in the following years were ousted from their position by aggregations of working tinners themselves. Further information is furnished by Jars, who visited Cornwall in 1765. His words are as follows : ' L'usage 6tabli dans toutes les mines est de donner 1'extraction du mineral par enter- prise, les entrepreneurs ont des ouvriers k leurs gages, qui travaillent sous leurs ordres ; quelques uns sont ouvriers eux-memes.' 9 On a day pre- viously set, the account continues, those interested in a mine assemble, and the contractors make offers, bidding downwards. The workmen find themselves the necessary tools, light, and powder. The adventurers provide for the maintenance of machinery and ropes. The number of work- men who do the work is usually from seven to nine, and the time of contract six months. The contract is determined by a portion of the mineral extracted that is, the contractors receive a third, a fourth, or a fifth of the value raised. Here, again, we have the main outlines with some of the details of the system already described. The actual workmen appear for the most part to have been hired for wages, and to be under con- tractors who agree to excavate the ore for a certain proportion of the selling price ; and it is to be noted that although the entrepreneurs are said elsewhere to be compelled to have workmen of all kinds, yet no express mention is made by Jars of the work to be done in preparation for the extraction itself. It will be remembered that the work of extraction, according to the description already given of the work of the present day, was assigned to tributers, and the work of preparation to tut workers, who approach more closely to the ordinary wage earners ; yet Jars, confining his attention to the work of extraction, speaks of the actual workmen as hired for wages. But he also states that in some cases the entrepreneurs are actual workmen, and in other passages says that simple workmen often commence the ex- ploitation of a mine at their own risk. Can we trace these systems farther ? Tut work we do not find until 1778, and it seems to have had as predecessor the piece-work system, concomitant with it at that date. But the tribute system is much older. Carew tells us that small undertakings were worked by men single-handed, but that usually the discoverer of a lode took others into association, because 'the charge amounteth mostly verie high for any one man's purse except lined beyond ordinarie.' 10 The ad- venturers were either working miners or capi- talists who put in hired labour. Large works were carried on under the direction of a captain, and toll was paid to the lord of the soil, or the lord 556 9 Jars, Voyages Metallurgiques, iii, 202. 10 Carew, A Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1811), 33, 34.