IN modern times gold-mining remains one of the minor industries of this country. In the days of the great depression more and more men turned to gold-mining as a means of making a living. In 1929 less than one and a-half thousand men were engaged in the industry, but by 1934 the number lad risen to over six and a-half thousand. This increase in numbers was caused partly by the enhanced price of gold and partly by the system of government subsidies to unemployed men willing to undertake prospecting and mining. The amount and value of the gold produced also increased.

In the eighty years between 1857 and 1937 gold contributed £, 103,008,494 to the wealth of New Zealand. That money was partly responsible for material improvements in both town and country. It also enabled New Zealand to import much more than would otherwise have been possible. It was thus responsible for raising the standard of living. New Zealand also benefited by the new blood which the diggers added to her national stock. Many immigrants of the sixties remained in New Zealand, and after the rushes were over contributed greatly to the development of other industries. Gold-mining was a definite factor in settling people on the land in the back country. On the other hand several New Zealand towns of today owe their origin and general prosperity to the gold produced in neighbouring mines, although admittedly most of the mining towns of the sixties and seventies have dwindled almost to vanishing point. The impetus given to the colony, at a critical stage in its history, by the discovery of rich deposits of gold was of sufficient importance to justify an early writer’s use of the headline, ‘Gold—the Great Coloniser.’