of the Royal Hotel, William Clark, had "stayed on all through the depression". Opposite to the Royal "is another hotel, empty, forsaken and forlorn". However, "within the past two or three weeks some of the deserted shops have been re-opened" and the population which had departed when the two mines closed was "gradually returning". In August 1888 a correspondent from Mount Hope wrote that "the mines are going on very slowly" because of the cost of wood for the smelting furnaces. The price of dry wood was seven shillings a ton "and carters have to go six, seven, and eight miles for it”. The situation was exacerbated by the practice of “scrubbing” (removing undergrowth) by squatters, for which task Chinese workers were engaged. The Mount Hope Progress Society had asked that “no more permits be granted for ringbarking within a certain distance of the boundaries of Mount Hope common, as the same is injurious to the mining industry”. The writer concluded that “unless something be done to protect timber, the copper mines, &c., in this district will be abandoned for good”. In August 1899 “concentrating machinery” was installed at the New Mount Hope mine which was able to utilise low grade ore by “dressing it up to a high smelting value”. This was expected to be of “immense benefit to the trade of the district, as of late years owing to insufficient output of copper” employees had not received “the full value of their earnings”. At the Great Central mine it was reported that “affairs look gloomy”, where work was being carried out "in a perfunctory sort of manner, but… there is no money about”. In 1913 the New Mount Hope copper mine was acquired by Mount Hope Ltd. In March 1918 it was reported that the mine was “now worked as a purely concentrating and leaching proposition” and “gives employment to 150 men”. By that stage the Central Mount Hope mine had ceased operations. Railway branch line The Matakana to Mount Hope single-tracked branch line was opened in February 1919. The copper mine for which this branch was constructed to service ceased full-time operations four months before the line was opened. In early July 1924 the train service between Matakana and Mount Hope was discontinued “because of the paucity of business”; there had been “so little hope of a mining revival in the district that the whole of the