But in 1896 the Minister, Chao Phya Surasakdimonti, resigned and
recommended the abolition of the Ministry. Accordingly, the Department
of Mines was transferred to the Ministry of Interior where it
proved useful in helping to extend the centralized control of the government
to remote provinces of the south where European mining operations threatened to create difficulties for the embattled kingdom.
The old Krom Na activities-primarily fiscal in character, as we have
seen-were transferred to the Ministry of Finance, where they were reorganized
as a Department of Agriculture