results will probably be obtained, and as the State, besides the other
advantages I have previously pointed out, gets a royalty on the gold, it
has a natural interest in doing its utmost to select the most favourable
sites for new mining operations. Such sites then should, with the aid of
experienced mining advisers, be selected by the Government, which itself
should execute the preliminary works previously specified, and then
advertise the blocks, so selected and prepared, for sale in the London
market. For such prepared blocks purchasers could readily be found, and if
the price they paid merely covered the bare cost of the preliminary works,
the expenditure of capital that would thus be stimulated, with all its
consequent direct and indirect advantages to the province, would amply
repay the Government for its trouble and outlay.

But the State may give yet another stimulus to mining, which, I feel sure,
would prove of great advantage to the State. The present royalty is five
per cent. on the value of the gold produced, and from this source the
Government last year received 5 lakhs and 18,000 rupees. Now the
prosperous companies which are paying good dividends do not feel this to
be a very serious burden, but it is a serious burden--every shilling of
expenditure indeed is--to a company which has not begun to pay dividends,
and I would suggest that, till a company is able to pay dividends,
one-half of the royalty, or, better still, the whole of it, might be
remitted. This sum would by no means be lost to the State, for does not
the milk that is left in the cow go to the calf?

The measures I have proposed would be of such obvious advantage to the
State that, were I a shareholder, or intending investor, in mines in
Mysore, I should have no hesitation in suggesting their adoption, but it
may be as well to mention that I am neither.

I drove one afternoon with my host to the court on the field, and had some
conversation with the magistrate regarding thefts at the mines, and it
certainly appears that a special Act is required to check the stealing of
gold. Sponge-gold (i.e., gold from which the quicksilver has been
evaporated), quartz, or gold amalgam, if found in the possession of any
person, renders the individual liable to prosecution, if the possession of
gold in any of these forms cannot be satisfactorily accounted for. But the
individual cannot be called to account for having ordinary pure gold in
possession. Now i