e who either have land and work for occasional periods of the year on
the mines, or by labourers, who, when they have saved enough money from
their wages (which they could do with ease in a year), will acquire and
cultivate a small holding. A large proportion of this sum of L360,000 a
year--probably two-thirds of it--goes to improving the status and
condition of the agricultural and labouring classes, and I need hardly add
that this not only leads to an improvement of the resources of the State,
but enables the people the better to contend with famine and times of
scarcity, and thus still further improves the financial condition of the
Government. And it is largely in consequence of the great sums brought
into Mysore by the planters and the gold companies that the revenues of
Mysore are in such a nourishing condition, and that year after year the
annual budget presents an appearance more and more favourable.

And here this question naturally arises. What can the Government of Mysore
do to stimulate the employment of labour in mining, and thus still further
strengthen the financial position of the State? I am prepared to show that
it can do much to stimulate the opening of new mines, and also to
encourage many of those now in existence which have not as yet been able
to pay dividends.

The reader will see by a glance at the map that the auriferous tracts of
Mysore (to which I shall presently more particularly allude) are of great
extent, and, judging from the report of the geological surveyor employed
by the Government, and especially from the existence of numerous old
native workings, there is no reason why prizes even greater than the best
of those already obtained should not exist. Now one of the greatest
obstacles in the way of rapid progress lies in the fact that before mining
can be got fairly under weigh much preliminary work has to be done, and
the shareholders have therefore a long time to wait before any paying
return can be obtained. But if the preliminary work, such as the providing
of water, the collection of building materials, and the making of roads,
etc., were carried out before a company was formed, mining could be begun
at once, and results rapidly arrived at, and the frittering away of money,
both in England and India, that at present necessarily occurs, would be
averted. Now the country has already been largely explored, and the
Government is therefore in a position to know the places where favourable