OK, all. I don't have a lot of information on this subject so I'm throwing this out to you.
Mainly, I'm considering a subplot for an upcoming TL where, roughly in 1840's, a flow of Americans into the "Oregon Territory" and assorted western territories (Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, etc) led to the local American settlers effectively taking over. Say, 100,000 American and 20,000 British in roughly 1846 (Mexican War Era) declare themselves independent when Britain doesn't allow a local Parliament. As this was hardly a vital corner of the Empire, British response is mild and more interested in whether or not America would claim the territory.
Busy and not wishing to antagonize GB while they had bigger things on their plate, the United States repudiates the settlers "secession" from Great Britain's claims and concentrates on Mexico, thinking they could deal with Oregon later on their terms, akin to letting things sit with Texas for a while, then quietly annexing them at a later date when things die down.
Assume that GB can't exactly do much about the matter as they have no troops in the area and, even in the early age of steam, it would taken months to get any significant amount of ships and troops the 10,000 mile journey from Britain, around South America, up the Pacific coast, etc.
Without going into HOW this happened, my question revolves around this new state and how it would be run for the first few decades as an independent power.
My first thought is that they would need money to counter even a low level of British harassment. The only way I see this ATL country/state could do so is by taxing gold.
How would this be done? How was it done OTL with the California, Alaska and other gold rushes? Did the government ever takes its' share?
I'm thinking there was no defacto taxation on this in OTL. The prospectors probably walked their gold into the mint and bank and walked back out with cash.
How could a country in need of money regulate and tax this?
Could the nation ban the export of any gold that wasn't stamped into currency? That way they could control it and take the 10%, 20%, whatever off the top for running the government.
Obviously prospectors would be unhappy to pay anything to the government. But would the potential of seeing all their gold confiscated, or stolen by others, be enough for them to bite the bullet and pay the tax for security's sake?
Maybe the Western Canadian government could even agree to "protect" any further exports via their own armed ships, maybe transporting fortunate miners to San Francisco where they could disembark quite legally?
Is this in any way feasible?
List of Canadian Gold Rushes in this general era.
Charlottes Gold Rush, 1850