Arizona silver belt., 1888-05-12
FOREIGN INVESTORS IN MINES.

4I IS matter Of common renark,
 says the Engineering and Mining Journal, that mining properties which can not be sold in San Francisco, New York or other places in this country, are often placed abroad; and it not in- frequently happens that the selling price increases in direct ratio with the distance from the mine"
 Another instance where distance lends enchantment to the view. It illustrates, too, discrepancy of human nature confined to no race or nation, and more observable in the daily, pet ty traffic in the commodities of life.
 We Americans will pay much more for an imported article than for the same thing of home production, al- though equally as good. The people of the West are comparatively free from this delusion, but the well-to-do residents of Eastern cities have come to look upon nothing of American manufacture as good enough for their highly cultivated, esthetic tastes. The gilded young man must get his entire outfit from London, and the fashlona- ble girls teggery is of Paris manufac- ture. The old Dutch aristocracy of New York have even come to think that they must import their potatoes from Holland. Many millions of dol lars are annually squandered-a dead loss to the United States-by Ameri- can parvenues who must do "Yurrup," although nins-tenths of them know comparatively little of their own country,
 Our ShylOcks, doubtless, believe that it is needful that this senseless waste, or part of 1t at least, should be recev- cred, and consider It a praiseworthy act to bleed the credulous foreigners in every way possible. Sell them watered securities, ranches stocked with thousands of cattle never round ed up, and mines whose wealth of ore, in nlas1tessas, ,ss -t G,,t:tiieHss,
 As an illustration of the adaman- tine cheek of the mining broker ne- gotiating sales abroad, the Journal mentions case where a certain mine that had been hawked about New York for more than year, at S3OO,- 900, without success, when the broker, despairing ofmaking sale, went to London and was negotiating for the sale of the property to Englishmen for S1 100000. The Journal suggests that had S3OOO,OOO been asked, the c ances of finding buyer would have been much mere favorable.
 But speaking soberly, these bare faced swindles act as a boomerang, doing the district where the alleged | mine is situated, oftimes, irreparabls injury. Of course persons who rely | solely on the representations of the broker, or on the report of Incompe- tent experts, in buying mines, are de- serving of little sympathy, but the | people of the West have a very lively | interest in seeing capitalists, and es- pecially cur English cousins who in- vest in mining properties, protected | and given every encouragement in their endeavors to develop our mineral wealth, and reap a good profit from their investment. The liberal and | businesS-like methods of English com panies are proverbial. Among mine investors there are none who develop their properties more systematically, pay better wages and disburse more money than Englishmen.
 Now that the objectionable clause iu the Alien Act denying foreigners the right to buy and hold mines and mineral lands has been repealed, we may look for very considerable in- quiry for gold, silver and copper mines from abroad.