Mining magnate

“ Despite the fact that no royalty was yet exacted upon the gold output, probably to please French, American, and German investors, there seemed to exist a veiled hostility against the representatives of mining capitalists, as if the Government regretted to have allowed the exploitation of the mines to fall into private hands and would welcome an opportunity to take them under State control altogether. ”

“ The wages are not high, and only those in straitened circumstances, the dissolute, and profligate, who have no homes of their own, are inclined to let themselves to labor in gold mines.
Many works are extensive, and employ a thousand or more laborers each. The government grants mining privileges to individuals on certain conditions. ”

“ One of the greatest causes of non-success of gold-mining ventures, particularly when worked by public companies, is the lack of actual personal supervision, and hence, among other troubles, is that ultra-objectionable one—gold stealing from the mills, or, in alluvial mining, from the tail races. ”

“ How many times it had happened that a lonely prospector, weary, ragged and hungry, had, with a stroke of a pick or the flick of a pan, revealed such sources of wealth as to change a burning desert, a fetid swamp or a bleak mountain range into a hive of industry! What statesman has ever wrought as many wonders for his country as has that questing nomad with his shovel and his shallow pan?
The spirit of rugged honesty and of fair play which so sharply distinguishes the real miner from the mere mining speculator lay deep in Owens. ”

“ To rule over an excitable population, varying from ten to twenty thousand; to hear and decide the interminable mining lawsuits arising from the production of tons of gold—literally tons, won, held, and distributed under a code of mining laws, of a sufficiently complicated nature, and appearing to the unlearned a mass of confused, contradictory regulations, was no sinecure. ”

“ The following are some of the wicked and sinful methods by which they say men obtain riches from mining. When a prospect of obtaining metals shows itself in a mine, either the ruler or magistrate drives out the rightful owners of the mines from possession, or a shrewd and cunning neighbour perhaps brings a law-suit against the old possessors in order to rob them of some part of their property. Or the mine superintendent imposes on the owners such a heavy contribution on shares, that if they cannot pay, or will not, they lose their rights of possession ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every man may do what he will with his own. If he has a penny in his pocket, he is at liberty to spend or to hoard it as he deems best.
But this decision of his lordship threatened ruin or something like ruin to a good many men who had lived on the mine, to families whereof the father worked underground, and the children above washing ore on the floors. The cessation of the mining would throw all these out of employ. It was known to the miners that manganese mines were everywhere unprofitable, and were being abandoned. Where then should they look for employment? ”

“ In place of diggers swarming like bees, dignified steam-engines draw the gold from the earth, not for those who toil with pick and spade, but chiefly for that throng of mining brokers, and idle, disreputable speculators who crowd the pavement of the Ballarat ‘Corner.’ Few make money by investing in mines. ”

“ One half of all mining land is reserved for the crown, a quarter or more is gobbled by corrupt officials, and a meagre share left for the daring miners who, by braving hardship and death, develop the mines and open up the country.
"Any one going into the country has no right to cut wood for any purpose, or to kill any game or catch any fish, without a license for which a fee of ten dollars must be paid. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such was the Emma mine, famous, or rather infamous, in history. Just a little later this barren hole in the ground figured in one of the biggest swindles of modern times, in which great names were involved, a minister of the United States to England disgraced and ruined, British investors robbed out of ten million dollars,172 and the business world filled with such suspicion that for many years the doors of foreign credit were barred against American mining enterprise of every sort. ”

“ Poor ores are now worked profitably which used to be neglected by the miners; and, as these ores occur in almost inexhaustible masses, their mining is a much less speculative affair than the old system of mining for rich veins. Moreover, the men are, in some of the largest mines, paid by the day, so that their life has become more regular. In many places, however, the work is still done on shares by the miners, who pass their lives in alternations of excessive riches and all kinds of extravagance, succeeded by times of extreme poverty. ”

“ Meagher, 104 U.S. 279, 283: 'A mining claim perfected under the law is 'property' in the highest sense of that term, which may be bought, sold, and conveyed, and will pass by descent.' It is not, therefore, subject to the disposal of the government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The money taken from gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, and coal mines, has come from the treasure vaults of nature, and has not been filched from the earnings of anybody.”
“Mining is the one exception to the rule, doctor.”
“I beg your pardon, professor, but it is not. Another avenue to wealth has been the organization and reorganization of great industries on unwasteful and remunerative principles. For instance, the beef and pork packing establishments of the West supply the retail butchers of the land with meat at a less price than is paid for the live cattle.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ This vast space of territory has not been examined scientifically, and but little is known of its condition except that it is diamond yielding. Since their discovery the mines have been worked with more or less activity with slave labor under the direction of companies of large capital. Skilled labor with the modern appliances of science has not yet been employed [Pg 38] in these mining districts. And the condition of the country, its laws, and the controlling power of the diamond corporations, will render the application of scientific skill a difficult and hazardous task. ”

“ Nothing but such equality would have been tolerated by the miners, who were emphatically the law-makers, as respects mining, upon the public lands in the State. The first appropriator was everywhere held to have, within certain well-defined limits, a better right than others to the claims taken up; and in all controversies, except as against the government, he was regarded as the original owner, from whom title was to be traced. But the mines could not be worked without water. Without water the gold would remain for ever buried in the earth or rock. ”

“ My father knows nothing about mining himself, and he has not even had an expert's opinion upon it. He goes entirely upon the Count's word, and what the Count chooses to show him. Why, the mine isn't being worked—hasn't been worked for thirty years."
"Perhaps," I suggested, "the Count hasn't the capital to work it. Labour out here's mighty cheap, but up-to-date mining takes a lot of money." ”

“ The dynamite and railway monopolies, the heavy expense of the transit of machinery from the coast, the absence of subsidiary local industries to feed the gold industry, forced the work into the hands of a small circle of rich firms who could provide the large capital and face the heavy risks of a new enterprise. It is clear, therefore, that mining on the Rand, while a notable enterprise, has necessarily been a slow one, since the two natural factors, the amount of gold in the soil and the labour of working it, have been complicated by many artificial hindrances. ”

“ Gold mines are numerous in many parts of the country, and most of these are owned by English capitalists. The aggregate yield of gold is only $6,000,000 annually. There are also silver, copper, and lead; and lately quicksilver has been discovered. Very unwisely, the government exacts a heavy tax on all mining machines brought into the country. ”

“ Until about thirty or forty years ago, mining was the most prominent interest in the state, but wars and political disturbances caused the abandonment of the mines, and the works fell into decay, after which there was neither enterprise, capital, nor skill to restore them. ”

“ But in a general way it's the high point of an ore-body—the highest place where it shows above ground. But the law works out like this: every time a man finds a mine and opens it up till it pays these apex sharps locate the high ground above him and contest the title to his claim. You can't do that in Mexico, nor in Canada, nor in China—this is the only country in the world where a mining claim don't go straight down. But under the law, when you locate a lode, you can follow that vein, within an extension of your end-lines, under anybody's ground. ”

“ And yet whenever I have inquired into the complaints which are in common vogue, I always find that the owners who are abused have the best of reasons for driving the men from the mines; while those who abuse the owners have no reason to complain about them. Take the case of those who, not having paid their contributions, have lost the right of possession, or those who have been expelled by the magistrate out of another man’s mine: for some wicked men, mining the small veins branching from the veins rich in metal, are wont to invade the property of another person. ”

“ This chapter will be devoted to Company formation and working, in which mistakes leading to very serious consequences daily occur.
It is not necessary to go deeply into the question why, in the mining industry more than any other, it should be deemed desirable as a general rule to carry on operations by means of public Companies, but, as a matter of fact, few names can be mentioned of men who mine extensively single handed. Yet, risky as it is, mining is hardly more so than, say, pastoral pursuits, in which private individuals risk, and often lose or make, enormous sums of money. ”

“ Mining must, therefore, be assigned to a permanent corporation, which can afford to wait for success; and no corporation is better adapted to do this than the state, which, moreover, has still another reason for obtaining possession of the metals, as we shall soon show. ”