Mining concession

“ The output in normal years approaches 800,000 carats. No attempt should be made to obtain a possible concession without thorough investigation and ample capital. The same may well be said of any mining venture. A concession for emerald mining has been secured by an American company. ”

“ Some of the preliminary mining concessions are at present in the hands of individuals or small corporations. It will be necessary that these turn over their holdings to our single all-embracing organization for the sake of efficiency. ”

“ Intending settlers or companies can obtain, upon favourable terms, land for pastoral or agricultural purposes, mineral leases, and concessions giving them the right to cut timber upon the State forests. A miner can acquire, on the annual payment of ten shillings, a miner's right, entitling him to take possession of, mine, and occupy, unoccupied Crown Lands for gold mining in accordance with the Mining Regulations. ”

“ It is to the public interest that deposits of mineral should not be permitted to remain idle and undeveloped. This has been recognized from the earliest times, and laws have been framed in all countries for the encouragement of mining enterprise. In many cases the state or the ruler has sought to obtain a share in the profits of mining, or even to work mines for the individual profit of the ruler or of the state. ”

“ Wooden booths flung signs to the streets bigger than the booths themselves: "Mineral Companies Promoted," "Mining and Smelting," "Mines, Options, Leases,"—there was no end to the variations of the eternal theme of mining. Town lots, switches of flats, and hill ridges were being swapped and sold and leased from the curb-stone; leases were being made from buggies and options were being granted from a horse's back. ”

“ No time need be spent in restating the general common-law rule that the ownership in fee of the surface of the earth carries with it the right to the minerals beneath, and the consequent privilege of mining to extract them. ”

“ These deposits are naturally the first to fail in productiveness, but the neighboring hills are formed of a gold-bearing quartz which is being crushed, night and day, by hundreds of powerful machines; and the works still pay ten thousand miners fair day-wages, besides giving the organized companies who employ them satisfactory dividends. Thus mining has been largely robbed of its adventurous character in this neighborhood, and perhaps also of most of its alluring charm, having become a sort of regular industry, like coal-mining, or even brick-making. ”

“ Every ton of stone broken and treated from even the best gold mine in the world makes that mine the poorer by one ton of valuable material; thus, to buy a mining property on its past reputation for productiveness is, as a rule, questionable policy, unless you know there is sufficient good ore in sight to cover the purchase cost and leave a profit. ”

“ But in most cases it has been found better policy for the state to divest itself of all interest in mining property, and to extend all possible encouragement to those who undertake the development of the mineral wealth of the nation. ”

“ It is the policy of the country to encourage the development of its mineral resources. The act of July 26, 1866, declared that all mineral deposits on lands belonging to the United States were free and open to exploration, and the lands in which they are found to occupation and purchase by citizens of the United States and those who had declared their intention to become such, subject to regulations prescribed by law, and to the rules and customs of miners in their several mining districts, so far as the same were applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United States. ”

“ Some of the ore from both kinds of mines-between 10 and 20 per cent.-is concentrated by washing or beneficiated after coming out of the mine and before starting out of the state, but our conclusion respecting the usual operations renders this deflection immaterial.
Plainly the facts do not support the contention. Mining is not interstate commerce, but like manufacturing, is a local business, subject to local regulation and taxation. ”

“ It was found that, under the pre-emption and homestead act, lands containing known saline deposits and mines could not be purchased. In the town-site act it was provided that, by virtue of its provisions, no title could be acquired to any mine of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper, or to any valid mining claim or possession held under existing laws; and, under the mineral act of congress, it was provided that, in all cases, lands valuable for minerals should be reserved from sale, except as otherwise expressly provided. ”

“ We are satisfied that the mining industry, as a whole, in the Hauraki mining district, is in a very critical condition, and that the Court is not justified, unless very cogent reasons are established, in adding to the present expense necessary for the further development of the industry. ”

“ The holder of a miner’s right is entitled to enter upon any Crown land for the purpose of prospecting and searching for gold, and to take and maintain possession of a parcel or parcels of land and work the same, subject to the regulations and provisions of the Act; he is also authorised to cut timber for removal or for the erection of a place of residence or of business, and with the Warden’s consent, to make tramways or roads for mining purposes. Claims are of four kinds—alluvial deposits and river or creek beds; quartz lodes, reefs, and leaders ”

“ The mines of England have no assistance from the government, but must rely for their success upon their own resources, and the spirit and energy of their owners; and it is probably to this cause that we may attribute the activity and economy which, when their constitutions are duly examined, may be found to prevail in the principal mining districts. ”

“ From all of which it will be seen that nearly $4,000,000 may be given as the product of the mines up to May, 1870.
Nor are the mines, as a whole, decreasing in value. The promise of the past is the promise of the future. If results ave been encouraging, they may be fabulous. There are fields above and below unoccupied. It needs, simply, that capital, energy, and practical mining experience combine, to make this second to no hydraulic region in the State. The wealth is here, and it remains to be seen whether the forces that produce it are to bless with their coming and successful working. ”

“ It is believed that the mineral deposits alone represent hundreds of millions of dollars in the territory covered by the concession, without regard to other interests of value. The development company, which will own the concession, proposes to divide and separate these interests among several subordinate companies—one to build and operate the railway, another to operate the coal mines, another to operate the copper mines, another to develop the oil deposits, and others to undertake the development of the various other interests. ”

“ We are not aware of any public policy of the government which sustains this proposition.
Where there is a valid location of a mining claim, the area becomes segregated from the public domain and the property of the locator. There is no inhibition in the mineral lands act against alienation, and he may sell it, mortgage it, or part with the whole or any portion of it, as he may see fit. ”

“ The natural result of the existing condition of things is that the true owners of the mines are those who have invested no capital in them—the Government, the railway concessionnaires, the dynamite concessionnaires, and others. The country is rich, and under proper government could be developed marvellously, but it cannot stand the drain of the present exactions. We have lived largely upon foreign capital, and the total amount of the dividends available for shareholders in companies is ridiculously small as compared with the aggregate amount of capital invested in mining ventures. ”

“ The latter is a thing apart from the relation of employer and employee, which in all producing occupations is purely local in character. Extraction of coal from the mine is the aim and the completed result of local activities. Commerce in the coal mined is not brought into being by force of these activities, but by negotiations, agreements, and circumstances entirely apart from production. Mining brings the subject matter of commerce into existence. ”

“ Further than this, it is often contended that, as the capital expended in purchase and Page 39 equipment must be redeemed within the life of the mine, this item should also be included in production costs. It is true that mills, smelters, shafts, and all the paraphernalia of a mine are of virtually negligible value when it is exhausted; and that all mines are exhausted sometime and every ton taken out contributes to that exhaustion; and that every ton of ore must bear its contribution to the return of the investment, as well as profit upon it. ”

“ Such companies, with superior mechanical facilities to do much labor, in a short space, will be enabled to go over the whole mineral field, although already dug over by individuals, and reap yet a rich reward of their efforts. And when there will be no more gold washing to be done, then a new era in the mining of the country will commence—we mean a regular system of mining by sinking shafts into the very bowels of the rocks will be entered upon. ”

“ To make these mines produce the greatest possible quantity of lead of which they are capable, with the least possible expense, is a consideration of the first political consequence, to which end it is desirable that the reserved mines be disposed of, to individuals, or that the term for which leases are granted be extended from three to fifteen years, which will induce capitalists, who are now deterred by the illiberality of governmental terms, to embark in mining. ”

“ A prudent miner acting wisely in taking up a claim, whether for a placer mine, or for a lode or vein, would not overlook such circumstances, and they may in fact control his action in making the location. If the land contains gold or other valuable deposits in loose earth, sand, or gravel, which can be secured with profit, that fact will satisfy the demand of the government as to the character of the land as placer ground, whatever the incidental advantages it may offer to the applicant for a patent. ”

“ The law on mines of 1893 has somewhat modified some of the restrictions and extended the rights of mining. But the men are stolidly opposed to improvement; they retain the prejudices of their fathers. ”

“ Miners’ rights entitle the holders to take possession of, and reside on and mine, so much of the Crown lands as may be prescribed by the bylaws of the Local Mining Board. Business licences enable the holders to occupy and carry on business on the gold-fields, on lands not exceeding one acre in extent, and are issued at £2 10s. ”

“ In irregular and uncertain deposits this work of development should be kept at all times so far in advance of mining operations as to ensure a regular and uniform output. In some cases, where the barren areas are large, it may be necessary to have two or three years’ supply of ore thus blocked out in advance. A mine, however, may be over-developed, which results in loss of interest on the capital unnecessarily locked up for years by excessive development, and involves additional cost for the maintenance of such openings until they are needed for active mining operations. ”

“ But, while Congress delayed and hesitated to act, the swarm of enterprising and industrious citizens filled the country, and, before a State could be organized, had become its dominating element, with wealth and numbers and claims which demanded consideration.
Matters remained in this condition, with slight exception, until July 26, 1866, when Congress passed a law by which title to mineral land might be acquired from the government at nominal prices, and by which the idea of a royalty on the product of the mines was for ever relinquished. ”

“ By the custom which has obtained among miners in the Pacific States and Territories, where mining for the precious metals is had on the public lands of the United States, the first appropriator of mines, whether in placers, veins, or lodes, or of waters in the streams on such lands for mining purposes, is held to have a better right than others to work the mines or use the waters. ”

“ The mode of levying the dues on the gross produce of a mine, tends to discourage enterprize, where considerable expense is incurred by the adventurers without an immediate return. It seems reasonable that the land-owners should contribute something in favor of that exertion which so often leads to their great advantage.
If an equitable mode of assessing the dues in some proportion to the net profit, could be devised, and was liberally and fairly acted upon, it would probably tend more than any thing else to the encouragement of mining. ”

“ By consolidation of companies and the elimination of competition, arrogant methods and unreasonable charges have been put into force; and the managers of mines have been obliged to accept whatever rates the monopolists saw fit to charge for treatment and whatever arbitrary prices they cared to pay for the metallic contents of the shipped ores. ”

“ The system was carried to an enormous extent before the Revolution, and by it, almost all classes of the community were interested in the success of the mines, while a vast floating capital was employed in them, besides that which was, in some measure, withdrawn from circulation, and sunk in dead works. It gave an impulse to Mining operations altogether unprecedented in the history of the world ”