San Andreas independent., 1857-01-03
SAN ANDREAS;
saturday,.........January 8, 1857.
Taxing Mineral Lands.


ment, is being spoken of in certain quar-
tiers; and no doubt something Of the kind
will be attempted during the coming ses-
sion of the Legislature. This is matter
in which the mining population are deeply
interested, and the Daily (Sacramento)
Times very appropriately asks the ques-
tions, What has the mountain press to
sag ON the subject? Hov aciU the miners
like t9' We think the mountain press
will unitedly answer with an emphatic NO
And the miners, from Shasta to Kern river,
will express but one desire-to be let alone.
The miners have heretofore managed their
own affairs without Legislative interference;
the system has been found to work admi-
rably, and they are perfectly satisfied "to
let well enough alone," particularly when
they bear in mind that the legislature of
California has scarcely ever taken up a
subject without legislating it to death.
But the State is Observation-Disclosures
the holders of State bonds are frightened
at the prospect before them and sudden
ly up springs class of patriotic individ-
uals who are horror-stricken, lest the State
should repudiate; and they see no way of
weathering the storm, but to assess the
mineral lands of the State, whereby the
miners should assist, not in paying the
State debt, but in supporting a venal and
corrupt set of politicians, who have been
preying upon us, and eating up our sub
sistence for the last six years.
Before an attempt is made to tax the
miners, the law-making power, and those
who urge them on, should bear in mind
that miners are already indirectly taxed
to support every profession and occupation
in the State. They dig out the precious
metal which supports the small trader, and
slowly and gradually build up for him a
fortune; they have already paid per
centum which has amassed fortune for
the princely merchant, which enables him
to roll in luxury and ease, and spend more
in one nights debauchery, than the hard
working miner is able to accumulate by
his labor for months. The fifty million
dollars annually shipped from our shores
to create fortunes for others and add to the
general wealth of the country, have been
washed from the rivers, gulches and noun
tains of our State by his constant and un-
firing industry; yet from this accumula-
ted mass of wealth, he has been able to re-
tain but moiety to himself. He main
tains and supports all the other industrial
classes, besides carrying upon his broad
shoulders the loafers, bummers, and le-
gion of political blood hounds, such as
never before disgraced any other State in
our confederacy. He works all the week,
doing his own cooking, and frequently his
own washing; yet it is a notorious fact,
that while he is rougher clothed, poorer
fed and harder worked, he is worse paid
than any class in Our State Notwith-
standing the hardships which he has to
encounter, the onerous burdens he has to
bear in the shape of tariffs, put by the
trader upon everything he consumes, there
appears to be class who would press him
down still more, by compelling him to pay
per cent. upon the gold he erpects to dig
from the bowels of the earth at some future
day. And what is it for? Ostensibly, to
redeem the credit of the State; actually,
to fill the State Treasury, that the politi-
clans may have long pull, strong
pull, and pull altogether" at the public
crib. Who believes that the State would
be any better off FIVE years hence, if mining
claims were taxed, than it is at this time
Believe it who will, we do not. Allowing
that the tax could be collected (Which we
doubt), the next assumption of States
right principle, would be to divide out the
mineral lands and sell them to the highest
bidder. For, we believe, the politicians
of California, or vast majority of them,
would be guilty of anything to "raise the
wind )" and when the public treasury is
filed, it would be squandered, as it has
been heretofore Where are the hundreds
of thousands of dollars spent in endeavor-
ing to elect U. S. Senator the past two
years, and the end is not yet? In few
days the same old farce will, most likely,
commence again the battle will rage, and