Mr. Charles W. Merrifield sends to the Pall Mall Gazette
what we trust is an exaggerated account of the condition of Cornwall._ The price of tin has fallen so low from the discovery of large deposits in the Dutch East Indies that the Cornwall mines can no. longer be worked at a profit. Machinery which recently cost 10,000/. has been sold by auction for 900/., seventy-eight mines are being wound up compulsorily in the Stannaries Court, a far larger number have been stopped, and the writer believes that next Christmas not 20,000 miners will find employment. Last Christmas 200,000 were dependent on the mines. The price of copper is also falling, the lead and iron mines "can hardly be worked to any serious purpose alone," and the people of Cornwall, over numerous, must either emigrate or starve. The catastrophe, aggravated as it will be by the e_dsting distress in the iron trade, of which the public hears little, but which is very great, will be almost as terrible as that which befell Lancashire. We trust if these accounts are correct that it will be met as boldly and in as kindly a spirit. The miners are not men whom England can afford to lose.
