The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1895-06-10

auO VIC INNING tltl6Ss ne cOQulCt Is
quite as intense between the agricultural
claimants and the even-numbered Sec
tfons. The nomadio prospector is just as
much an enemy to the establishment of
an orchard in the mineral belt an he is to
theacquirement of patents by the rail-
road company.
The General Land Office has from time
| to time established new rules for the de-
termination of the physical facts in
volved; that is to say, for the determine
ton of the question whether piece of
land which has not been worked for
mining purposes was by reason of the
indication mineral. II mineral, the rail
road company freely admitted that it was
not granted; that if nom mineral, then
the railroad company contended very
properly that it was granted. unless it
was excepted by reason of being in some
other category of non-granted land.
These rules and their notifications have
always been against the railroad and not
in its favor. Sparks required that before
any land could be patented each forty-acre
subdivision should be examined by two
competent and impartial witnesses who
had frequently passed over the land, and
were therefore qualified to testify as to
their mineral or non-mineral character.
The Government surveys do not segre-
gate sections into forty-acre tracts, and
the practical execution of this order
would involve a resurvey of every sec
ton into sixteen forty-acre tracts. Its
absurdity and impracticability we're SO
notorious that the department had to
abandon it. In lieu of it other onerous
conditions were imposed, which condi-
tons are still in force.
In tho nature of things these conditions
imposed, in some particulars. hardships
upon the miners. In the first place the
railroad company has no means of deter
mining whether lands are granted or ex-
copied from the grant except by process
of listing, which brings the question of
their physical condition to the bar of
quasi-judicial tribunals, established by
the Commissioner for the determination
of these questions. When large lists are
published-always at the expense of the
railroad company-the railroad company
itself is more able to bring in witnesses
than the individuals who may have
claims to the mining property. In view
of this situation the Land Agent of the
Central Pacific Railroad Company has
proposed to those interested in mining
throughout the grant in Oregon, Califor-
MIA, Nevada or any other part of the
country consensus of action whereby
the miners would be placed on an equal
footing with the railroad, and where the
rights Of the company would be set at
rest.
The unsettled state of titles retards the
growth of the country. 1t is simple fool
ishness on the part of the people of the
mining region to want to prolong this
controversy. The speediest adjustment
which adjusts on the basis of actual
right is certainly to be preferred. In
view of this the Land Agent..of the Central
Pacific Railroad Company sent a propo-
sition by the State Mineralogist, Mr..
Crawford, TO tbs Executive Committee of
the State Miners Association to the effect
that all parts Of the grant in the mineral
regions of the State should be divided
into districts; that in such districts the
railroad company should appoint an ex-
aminer and the State Miners Association
an examiner, aud that the evidence adj
duced by direct personal examination
would thereby be available to all parties.
In this way the mining population would
and as the railroad company is not seek
lug title to any land not granted, the
proposition outlined a means of deter
mining this question, and was altogether
in the interest of the mining population.
In the report of the proceedings of the
Executive Committee of the State Miners
Association one contemporary states that
this proposition was reluctantly proposed
by representatives of the railroad COM
pany. This simply is not true.
The proposition originated with the
railroad company and was presented
in good faith and would be executed
in like good faith. Furthermore, the
admission Of some of the members
of that committee that the PROPOSE
ton was fair on its face, but that
the railroad company did not intend to
execute it in good faith, is as pitiful as it
is contemplate. There are few persons
connected with the State Miners Associa.
ton whose occupations as agitators would
be gone if any straightforward. manly,
business-lik arrangement could be made
for the determination of the questions
upon which depends the ultimate solu-
ton of all difficulties. OF course such
people. finding abe proposition perfectly
fair, had to attack it on some ground.
They have emerged from we'll deserved
obscurity by this agitation, and they
would relapse into that obscurity ifmanly.
straightforward, business-like methods
were to be employed. 10 break the force,
therefore, of what was decidedly a per-
fectly fair proposition on the part of the