Gosset to Elliot (Assistant Under-Secretary)

Probably the most satisfactory reply I can give your
communication of the 30th, with reference to the Assay &
Melting branch of the British Columbia Mint, is, by soliciting
from His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, that attention to my report
of July 15/62, which, in it, I ventured to ask.

The report embraced the very points now under consideration—the
Departments past condition, and prospects.

It was penned specially for the information of His Grace, in
anticipation of my views as Head of the Department being desired.
It was forwarded to Governor Douglas for transmission as part of
a correspondence relating to certain claims advanced by the Assay
Officers, and should therefore be found in your office. I however
enclose a copy.

To that report I should have nothing to add, were it not, that
in your letter under acknowledgement, the sum of £9000 is in error
quoted to me, as outlay in connection with the Melting and Assay
Department; whereas, that sum, as the report clearly states, includes
the cost (about £2000) of the Mint, or
coining, machinery, procured by Mr Douglas in 1861, prematurely
as I thought at the time,
and erected by me at New Westminister prior to my departure.

As my report further implies, other reductions should be made,
in studying the legitimate cost of the Assay Establishment.

Although such corrections in the total expenditure, are necessary
towards an impartial scrutiny of the Department's career, it is not to
be inferred, that I ever calculated upon first costs, plant, freight,
passages, buildings &c &c, being directly repaid by current receipts.

When I wrote on the 25th April 1859, advocating the Melting
and Assay parts of a Mint, I only anticipated the direct repayment of
Current expenses by current receipts, and that, not until after
the first year of the Department's establishment.

That my original expectations have not been fully realized, and
may not be, even during another year, does not shake my conviction
of their rectitude. At the time I formed my opinions, I never
imagined, that British Columbia's Capital would long be without a
resident Governor, or the Colony without a Council and Assembly
or that therefore, many measures contemplated at the time, deemed by
the Colonists essential to British Columbia's progress, and which
such institutions would have ensured at an early date, could have
remained wanting to this day!

The Assay office has shared in the general effects resulting
from a lack of a popular policy. It suffered also a direct blow
at the outset from delay in its establishment, for, doubts as to
its future promptness were at once engendered, and to my
discomfiture, private assayers were forming their connections the
while. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the Department is steadily
gaining public confidence. A comparison of corresponding quarters,
exhibits a regular and promising increase of business; and, the
receipts by fees, although, as you remind me, if only £900 in
two years, were £600 in the second year, or one third of the annual
current expenses.

In Augst, my last month in the Colony, about 5,500 ounces
of gold were received for assay, against 1,700 ounces in the
corresponding month of last year—a triple quantity. Should this
rate of average continue, the Department would be directly
self-supporting.

But, whether the current fees do or do not suffice to defray
expenses, is regarded by the Colonists as a matter of very little
moment. The effect of the Government office in checking malpractices
amongst private assayers, is understood and loudly acknowledged.
The saving to the Colony by this alone, at the lowest computation,
2
exceeds the total cost of the assay department,
first cost current expenses, and every other item included!.

To confine any examination of the department's worth, to the mere
consideration of its apparent cost, to the exclusion of the well known
fact that any disturbance of its operations would be the tocsin
for an enormous loss to the general community, would but ill accord
with the views of the remarkably intelligent and practical people
of British Columbia, who, sensible of the department's great value,
desire its fullest development, and, of all expenditure out of
taxation, have approved none more than that for the erection of the
Melting, Assay, (and now Mint) buildings in New Westminister, and
for preserving efficiency therein.