The article discusses the correlation of natural and monetary forms of payments of wages to miners from state-owned enterprises of the Altai Region in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries. In-kind compensation which created the conditions for a “secondary” exploitation of workers and which served the ground for social conf licts sustained at the state-owned enterprises of the Altai region in the second half of the 19th — early 20th century. At the state-owned factories non-cash payment reached 21–24 %, at the state-owned gold mines, the largest portion of workers’ earnings, on average 40 % of it, was spent on the purchase of products and goods. The administration of state- owned enter prises used non-cash payments, legalized by the Provision on the 8th March 1861 which they used in their own interests: making people dependent from products and goods distributed by the Administration; creating the conditions for abuses. The methods of “secondary” exploitation which the Cabinet enterprises openly or covertly used in the Altai Region in the late 19th — early 20th centuries included deceiving the prospectors of the state gold mines at delivery of gold, the manipulation of rates for the work done, the intensity of labour, reduced rates, irregularity and delivery of ores, All these methods significantly reduced the earnings of workers.