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mounted so high that the Mining Board was constrained to cut down the allowance to 2s. 6d.,
but even with the rate reduced the expenditure for reef work and
drainage in 1879 and 1880 ran over £ 150,000 a year, and in 1881 it
rose to over £ 200,000. Still, the need of stimulating extraordinary exertion was then so apparent that the rate was put up to 3s. 9d. a
load in October, 1881, and for the eighteen months following fifty-six
million cubic feet of broken reef were hauled away by the claim-holders
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alone, at a cost to the Board of over £ 650,000,
without reckoning the amount extracted by the operation of its own
tramways. This stupendous charge was obviously too heavy to be borne
even by the richest diamond mine, and no assessment scheme could
sustain it. The Board struggled for months under the load, issuing
notes when it had no cash in hand; but in March, 1883, its issue of
outstanding notes or " reef-bills " was so great that its book showed a
debit balance of over £ 250,000, and the
local banks would extend no further credit. The Board was bankrupt,
reef extraction was stopped, perforce, and the
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