The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1883-04-21
MINERS WAGES.
A Contrast Between the California
and Nevada Miners

- ~
and Nevada Miners
The Ruby Hill Mining News, in re-
ply to the San Francisco Exchange,
thus closes a very sensible article on
the question OF miners wages and the
difference between the wages paid in
California and this State. 1t says:
Contrast the condition of the miner
living in Grass Valley, with one liv-
ing i'll Eureka or Buby Hill. In
Grass Valley a miner can get more
groceries or anything else necessary
for his support Tor 81, than he can get
in Eureka or Ruby Hill for 81. In
Grass Valley every miner has in close
proximity TO his residence a nice
spring of water, which costs him
nothing but his labor to sink, while
on Ruby Hill water is carried around
in large tanks and sold to families at
- cents per barrel. The condition.,
socially, of a miner residing in almost
any ofthe mining camps of California,
compared to that of residing in
Nevada, is like comparing a king to
a peasant. Miners will work in
places for So per day where water
flows, and the trees and flowers will
grow, where the gentle rain falls, and
where there is some JOY to be derived
a. a result OF living; but when it comes
TO living in a God-forsaken country
like Nevada, where the only sign of
vegetation is sage brush, where no
flowers are 10 be seen but once a year,
at which time, Decoration day some
good California ladies send up a few
boquets for the purpose OF strewlng
them oyer the graves of our dead SOL
diers, and when we only get one show
er OF rain a year, and that one sweeps
away u houses aud keeps us several
days cleaning and repairing what is
left to us-wny, we want 81 a day in
"A country like this and intend To have
it, too.
The Exchange further says:
Were mine owners allowed to EN-
ploy men at from 81 30 to 50 80 a day,
there are at least half a dozen mines
III Bodie which would now be in oper-
alton, and as many, If not more, on
the Gomstock.n
Nothing of the kind, my dear sir.
We do not believe il. A reduction in
miners wages would noi put one ma
to work in tile whole State of Nevada.
When a mine pays to work at all in
Nevada, it generally pays well, and
the owners can afford To pay good
wages; but when it can't afford to
pay 81 per day it cam afford To pay
50. 81 a day does not make so much
difference III a miners wages, as
economy on the part of the manage
men. in other directions.
II any other paper i'm San Francis
ca had attempted 10 decry the Miners
Union, we would have differently
considered the question, but a paper
that has persistently upheld and
bolstered the most thIeviug mining
corporation that it was ever the mis-
fortune of any mining camp TO be
cursed with, a corporation at whose
head was a man who was never
known to pay his miners their wages
If he could help ii, and who had 10
eskip out of this camp without even
bidding his acquaintances (he had no
friends) goodbye, fearing the anger
of the men lie ha / SO Systematically
robbed-why, the opposition to Min
ers' Unions coming from such a
source, when rightly considered,
causes us to blush with shame for
having taken up : % much of our space
in attempting To answer 1t.