appetite for pit props and 'junk' timber and heart stuff for their tramways; the construction work in the boom towns of Shortland and Grahamstown accentuated the demand for timber. The Thames Gas Company of 1871,169 and the Auckland and Thames Steampacket Company are instances only of the phenomenon here cited.170

Problems of government expenditure on the goldfield

The Thames goldfield in the later 1860s was repeatedly spoken of as 'the salvation of Auckland'. But though it saved both the destitute in town and country and the hitherto struggling capitalists and merchants of Auckland, it did little for the finances of the provincial government. Costly public works were needed to keep the mining industry productive. This can be shown from the estimates of the province for the year-ending 31 December 1869.171 The general expenses of the provincial government totalled £61,311, while expenses for the Thames goldfield (not included in that figure) totalled £40,981, of which the major items were Tramways £18,780, Roads £4,100, and Wharves and Jetties £3,245.

It had been appreciated that when the field was first opened the cost to the provincial government would be, in the short term, 'very much in excess of the revenue derivable from the Gold Field'.172 (This particular revenue was made up of the fees paid on the issue of Publicans' and Business Licences, and the duty on the export of gold; it must be appreciated that Maori thought that, under the original agreements, the whole of the money received from the issue of miners' rights was payable to Maori proprietors.) It had been the hope of the superintendent that goldfields revenue would in time restore the provincial administration to solvency,173 but the continuing demand, for example, for 'the construction of tramways up the main creeks with connecting lines', meant that the goldfield remained a continuing fiscal drain.174 Preoccupation with its own financial problems encouraged the Auckland provincial administration to regard any Maori unrest over revenues arising from mining as not its responsibility but as a matter for the central government in Wellington to settle.

Social and political character of Pakeha settlers on the Thames

A distinctive kind of community took shape in Thames during 1867-71, marking it off from other European settlements in the province. It has already been remarked upon how Thames diggers tended to differ from their South Island counterparts: being uniformly involved in quartz mining they tended to be not prospectors but wage-labourers in an on-going capitalist industry; and they were less transient and socially more stable. However, like mining groups elsewhere they were politically radical. They

169 Co. 1871/94, NARC

170 Dunstall, 'Colonial Merchant', p. 207.

171 Journals of the Auckland Provincial Council, 1869, Sess. 24, Appendix B2.

172 Ibid., Sess. 22, Williamson, 28 Nov. 1867.

173 Salmon, A History of Goldmining, p. 201.

174 Journals of the Auckland Provincial Council, 15 Jan. 1869, p. 23, Report of provincial accountant.

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