The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-03-29

| mines, shall be worked out, the coming Of PEG
pie here will have to STOP because all the arabic
| lanes are already appropriated and eventually
majority OF the Gentiles will have to 60 away.
Ii the author of the foregoing is a new
conner, charity for his lack of information
would excuse his mournful talk; but we
suspect he is a stockholder in some big
paying Utah mine, and like the great ma
1or1ty of such stockholders sends his
dividends to build stores or factories or
nome In some eastern or western state.
he Will OF course say that it is enough for
Utah, out OF whose resources come all his
profits, ii the men in his mine eat Utah
potatoes, beef and -four, for the simple and
all sufficient reason that these are the
| cheapest and best in the market.
But we say that this is not enough.
Every man can spend his money when and
Wnere he chooses, or not spend it at all,
Ior that matter; but we shall not permit
Ine Idle lie to go unrefuted whenever one
Vi tnese mlne-ownerS asserts that the
mines are the sole or the main support of
this territory, while at the same time he is
chuckling in his sleave to think how easily
people are duped on this question, and is
investing every dollar of profit from his
mine in some eastern or western enter
prise.
What we want in this territory of rich
mines is more men like MAT CULLEN and
JOHN BECK, who will apply the profits from
their mines to building hotels, establishing
industries or raising stock. Of what par
tlcular use to that state have the fabulously
rich mines of Nevada beens The state that
has yielded the wealth of many Golcondas
is sinking into hopeless poverty. And whys
Because her mine owners spend their divi-
dends in other places. They pay the wages
OF their. miners and the latter consume
much OF the agricultural product of the
state. But with all her wealth of mines,
with all the wages paid TO miners, and
circulated" as many foolishly suppose,
among the other people of the state, that
state can never become wealthy till the
profits of her own industry are invested
within her own borders Take the profits
OF any industry away from the territory in
which they are earned. and that industry is
not building up the territory. 1t is build
Ing up other places.
We want to see the mines of Utah de-
Veloped, we want to see Utah men own
more OF these mines, so that the wealth
taken from them may develop our own re-
sources in preference to those of Califor-
MIA. The baby talk that we want to close
down the mines, or even the smallest one
among them, in order to drive out the ''un-
cody Gentiles," is simply the talk of some
imaginative and apprehensive BOBBY. Our
whole argument has been to show how
much better it would be for this territory
If the mine owners would live here, build
residences, improve farms, or start factories
mere, as very few among them have done.
10 say that we would drive away wealth
producers is not foolish, it is idiotic
Men hate a new idea. They become
welded to their errors and think him an
enemy who points them out. This is par
tlcularly true in economic subjects. The
familiarity of the terms used-money, ex-
change, buying and selling-causes every
person to think himself capable without
special study to argue upon these subjects,
which appear so simple and commonplace.
The result is that each has ideas of his own,
adopted off hand, never tested, and with
no better basis than a few half seen facts
and wholly misinterpreted relations of
things. Let any man that has never
studied the laws of exchange begin to do
so, and he will find that what he supposed
was matter of extreme simplicity is
highly complicated; the larger part of
what he must learn is to unlearn most of
his previously cherished errors, false
theories, and wrong ways of looking at
things. 1t took the whole body of English
scholars fifty years to convince even ma
iority OF parliament that the people of
England must not starve simply for tie
sake of the principle the statesmen i'm
agined was embodied somewhere or some
how in the corn laws.
We were perfectly aware of the almost
universal misrepresentation of the part
played by the mines in the development of
this territory. We stated at the outset
that perhaps five out of every six men in
Utah might be. expected to reason thus:
Money is wealth and the mines produce
money, therefore the mines are practically
the only wealth producers in Utah. And
since trade could not go on without money,
and since the mines produce the materials
for money, therefore the industry and
wealth of this territory are due to mining
But we patiently explained little con-
corning the real function of money, and
then let the census point out how much
mining does for this territory, in addition
to the supposed, but mistaken notion, that
it supplies US with gold and silver: and
now many of our readers will reason diff
ferently on this subject. Many honest
mining men, on the other hand, now that
we have let the census show that mining
employs only one sixteenth of our working
population, and that the value of mining to
those not employed in it consists of the
amount of home products the mines con-
sumo perhaps one or two per
cent of the whole product - are
irritated at the new and more
correct ideas we have given them, and like
the priests with GALLO, they cannot dis
tinguish the difference between showing
that there are spots on the sun and conspir-
ing to place them there.
We observe that our contemporary saws
the future development of Utah must con-
sist largely of mining. Perhaps so, but we
think it must consist of improved agricul-
ture and manufacturing and commerce as
well; and these latter must greatly pre-
ponderate in order that our development
may be permanent. History affords no
examples of localities sustained for any
great period by gold and silver mining; and
this seems to be the only industry on which
the main reliance of any permanent COM
munity can not be placed.