[Editor: This article, about the Miner’s Right and socialism, was published in The Worker (Sydney, NSW), 7 October 1899.]
The Miner’s Right
To-day I am enjoying to some extent the blessings of genuine Socialism, or by whatever you like to call the true partnership of the citizen in the resources of his country. To some extent only, but to that extent very really.
I am endeavoring to get a subsistence on a goldfield, by washing up ancient river deposits for the few tiny specks of nearly useless yellow metal contained in them. If I can live by doing that it is thanks to human folly, and not to Socialism or anything like it.
But in order to follow this ridiculous occupation I have taken out a miner’s right. This document, costing only half-a-crown for six months, is a certificate of partnership in the natural resources of the country, in a way that nothing else existing at present comes near to. For the first time since my birth I am a partner in the State, not merely a person allowable to vote its managers into office.
This document certifies to me the absolute right to use a sufficient quantity of goldfields land for mining, on, or, as I might put it, the right to a job; I am at liberty to go to any unoccupied portion of the national estate, and start work without further ceremony than putting in pegs to mark off the ground which for the time being I intend to use. I can leave there at pleasure and select a fresh spot, but I cannot hold any place unworked, and so bar out somebody else, nor can any one so bar me out. Subject only to certain conditions of giving notice and registering, I can use lands outside of my mining area for purposes connected with the work, such as storing or laying on water, or erecting machinery. My country further guarantees me by this document the right to a quarter of an acre of the national estate for dwelling upon, and whether for an abode, or in connection with the mine, or its outworks, to as much of the national timber, bark, stone, gravel, etc., as will serve my purpose, and also to a constant supply of the national timber for fuel; I have only to help myself to what there is.
Why the devil I can only get these plain and obvious rights of citizenship recognized to me in connection with mining, I don’t know. It seems to me that so far the miner is about the only Australian — anyhow, the only New South Wales person — who is at all entitled to be called, at present, a “member of the community.” His membership may not go very far, but the person not possessed of a miner’s right is a rank outsider.
327.
Source:
The Worker (Sydney, NSW), 7 October 1899, p. 6
Editor’s notes:
half-a-crown = (also known as a “half crown”) a coin equivalent to two and a half shillings, i.e. two shillings and six pence (being one-eighth of a pound); whilst Australia never minted half crown coins, the United Kingdom did, and various British coins circulated in Australia, not only up until Australia created its own coinage in 1910, but also (unofficially) up until the 1930s
See: 1) “Half crown (British coin)”, Wikipedia
2) “English and British coins”, Sterling & Currency [re circulation of British coins in Australia]
3) “Half Crown, Coin Type from New Zealand – detailed information”, Online Coin Club [“Australia never minted the half-crown”]
miner’s right = a mining license; miner’s rights were first issued in Victoria in 1855, replacing the earlier gold licenses (which were introduced in 1851), and gave their holders a range of legal and political rights (the other Australian colonies subsequently followed the Victorian system)
See: 1) “Miner’s Right”, Eurekapedia
2) “Miner’s Right”, Wikipedia
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