Tributers and Gold Mining in Boulder,1918-1934

Between 1918 and 1932, gold mining companies in Boulder increasingly used the tribute system of mining. They replaced some waged or contract labour with tributers who contracted with a company for the sub-lease of a portion of mine; from this tributers or their employees could extract ore for sale to and treatment by a company, paying the company or leaseholder a royalty on the gold won and an agreed sum based on a scale of charges for services and stores the company provided. This form of mining coincided with a period of falling profits in the Western Australian gold mining industry and its expansion in Boulder was such that in 1930 tributers on the two largest mines produced over 40% of all the gold won in the whole of the East Coolgardie Gold Field. It was, in fact, one of the major factors that allowed companies to continue mining operations until rising gold prices and the marked reduction in treatment costs resulting from froth flotation techniques again gave them high profits. Literature dealing with this period of Western Australia's mining history has largely overlooked the significance and extent of tributing as a response to falling profits. The data are not shown separately in official statistics and contemporary accounts most often briefly refer to it as part of what was taken to be a dying phase of the industry. Such a conception focuses attention away from the issue of profitability and the centrality of relations of production (and the resultant cost and productivity of labour) in determining profitability in the industry. Thus, I argue that, contrary to the notion that the industry was dying,2 moves by companies to introduce tributing represent a process of attempting to reconstruct their relations with labour. In doing so they sought to increase profits in the face of what mostly was an inflexible gold price and a lack of control over the price of a range of essential commodities used in the industry. Moreover, tributing provided a lever in attempts to reduce wages and other labour costs, and increased the gold output per unit of labour within a complex legal framework that ensured the companies increased their relative share of value arising from the production of that gold. It was also part of moves by companies to produce

Business · Commerce · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Falling (accident) · Gold mining · Lease · Mining engineering · Mining industry · Order (exchange) · Productivity · Profitability index · Australian History and Society · Engineering · Finance · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · Mining and Resource Management

• Dust, contractors, politics and silicosis

  Bradley Bowden, Beris Penrose•Australian Historical Studies•2006

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