| Summary: | This thesis examines the origins and operation of the
subsidised gold prospecting scheme. It also sets out to
explain the significance of goldmining as a depression relief
measure and to give some indication of the impact it made on
the lives of those men who became the diggers of the 1930's.
In an effort to achieve the latter objective the focus
throughout is regional. The West Coast, home of the gold
rushes of the 1860's, is taken as a case study. Although
in some respects the West Coast experience was unique, its
gold seekers share much of the common experience of those
engaged on the gold scheme elsewhere.
This thesis is based largely on the records generated
by the Unemployment Board and the Employment Division. The
correspondence between these Wellington based bodies and the
separate organisations on the goldfields throws much light
on the day-to-day operation of the scheme. They tell us
less, however, about what it was actually like to work on the
scheme. This shortcoming has been met in part at least by
the existance of the Ross Borough Council Records, the
recollections of men who were there and by the fortuitous
survival of the diaries of one participant, Rab Clark. Clark
was the Secretary of the Blackball Miners' Union throughout
the 1930's and became a supervisor of the gold scheme. His
comments thus provide a useful insight into the attitudes of
the many coalminers who found themselves looking for gold
rather than coal during these years. These three sources
proved invaluable to a mere Cantabrian attempting to reach an
understanding of life on the 'Coast'.
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