Quoted above is a demand of the workers in the 1907 “18 Pence Strike.” This name referrs to the amount of a wage for a particular mining workers.
Another demand was *While the tokens are being abolished and pay is starting to be given in legal tender, each oficina, its Manager representing it and pledging compliance, shall agree to accept tokens from every other oficina on a par with its own, paying a fine of 50,000 pesos for every refusal to do so.”
The organization of workers is one of the patrimonies from Humberstone and other Saltpeter Villages referred to by the World Heritage committee.
The “bar and balance” of the quoted demand is a scale. The balance scale, below, is from our day visiting Humberstone.
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”
References
Wikipedia: “Santa María School massacre.”
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 
I’m surprised to see oficina used in a British text. It’s the Spanish word for ‘office.’
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Humberstone, named after the British founder, is in the Atacama desert of Chile. Here is a link with more info. https://michaelstephenwills.com/2020/09/13/humberstone-entrance/
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