The History & Archaeology of Cadia Valley

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Annual Report of the Department of Mines, 1908

The Annual Report of the Department of Mines for 1908 reported:

“The Cadia Copper Mine was idle during the last four months of the year. The position of affairs is gathered from the published report of the half-yearly meeting of the Scottish Australian Mining Company, Limited, the owners of the freehold. The chairman explained that the royalty lease granted to the syndicate for period of three years had run out. Operations had been of a successful character, and considerable bodies of high-grade copper ore had been opened up and extracted. The syndicate during the currency of their lease had realised copper to the value of £110,000. Out of this royalties, amounting to £11,000, and working costs had been paid, while leaving reasonable returns for the members of the syndicate. The Scottish Australian Company agreed to grant a fresh lease for twenty-one years to a company possessed of a capital of £120,000, of which £40,000 in fully paid up shares were to be allotted to the owners of the land, a like number of shares to the members of the syndicate, and £40,000 provided in cash as a working capital. It is understood that this working capital has been subscribed, as operations were resumed at the opening of the current year on a reasonable scale. For the period work was in progress during the year, 7,945 tons of ore were smelted for 746 tons of matte, of a net value of £20,236.”

In some respects the formation of the new company was similar to that of the former Cadiangullong Consolidated Copper Mining Company, established on 30 May 1864, which brought together the miners and the landholders, only on this occasion the Scottish Australian Mining Company were the landowners and not the miners.

The only significant facts that the Annual Report of the Department of Mines had failed to indicate were the £5,000 the Company received for drawing up the 21 year lease for the 500 acres and the name of the new company, namely the Cadia Copper Mining and Smelting Company Limited.

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