The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-07-30
Klondike and Transvaal.

According to the telegram from Ottawa
which we printed yesterday, the Dominion
Government has determined to submit
American gold diggers in Canadian terri
tory to treatment even more vexatious and
oppressive than was originally proposed.
Should 1t attempt to carry out the regula-
lions which have been issued, it will pro.
woke upon the part of American U%itlanders
In the Klondike district an uprising similar
to that which was planned by English Uit-
landers at johannesburg, and which the
Jameson raid was intended to promote.
II the Ottawa authorities had set about
deliberately to exasperate ar American
community beyond the bounds of endur-
ance, they could have hit upon no means
more certain to attain their end than the
complex worrying, grinding scheme of con-
ascation and taxation which has actually
been devised. That no fiscal scheme so
CALLING and 30 merciless was ever before put
forward by a professedly liberal Govern
ment we may safely affirm. when we con.
slider the circumstances under which it is to
be applied, and the extraordinary hardships
and dangers which nave to be faced by the
hunters of gold amid the rigors and priva-
tions Of an Arctic winter. The features of
the scheme are four, and it is hard to say
which Is the more unreasonable, harsh.
and obnoxious. We observe, in the first
place, hat II a miner should happen to
arrive in the Yukon gold fields penni.
less, he could not locate a claim, no
matter how promising might be the surface
indications detected by him. In his own
interest he will not wish to disclose the
richness of his find until he has registered
aclaim, but this he cannot do except on
the payment of $15, a sun which, upon the
hypothesis, he does not possess.
We will suppose, however. that a miner
has managed to raise the $15 needed to pay
the registration fee, but has had the i'll luck
to find the surface indications imperfectly
sustained in the subsoil, 80 that during his
first year he is barely able to procure food
and lodgings from the proceeds of his dig
gings. Thenh he is confronted by the second
requirement of the Dominion Government
which orders him either to pay an annual
assessment of 300 or to renounce his
claim, though itmight well happen that the
next years digging in another portion of
the claim would disclose a large amount of
treasure. Again, we will assume that the
gross yield Of a given claim during a year
was $1,000. out of which, after the regis
tration fee and nual assessment demand
ed by the Government were deducted, there
would remain 1885. Every penny of that
amoun would probably be needed for food,
shelter, and tools; nevertheless, the miner
would encounter the third requirement of
the Dominion Government, which would
call upon him to pay 5000. that is to say, a
royalty of 20 per cent. on the gross yield
OF his claim. Not having been able to
save a cent, the miner, of course, could not
pay the royalty, mt the loss of his claim
would be the penalty. Let us take for grant
ed that the gross annua yield of a claim
were ten or twenty thousand dollars; here,
again, It Is obvious that, II men had been
employed to work it on wages at the rate
of $40 or $16 per day, the exaction of a 20
per cent. royalty on the gross yield would
amount practically to a confiscation of the
net profit. Even in the exceptional cases,
where from $50, 200 to 300, 900 might be
extracted In a single year, the demand for
. 20 per cent. royalty would be felt to be
excessive and ~tyrannical on the part of a
Government which had done absolutely
nothing to facilitate the workings of the
Yukon gold fields. There never was a
moro barefaced attempt to reap where one
has not GOWN than this of the Ottawa au.
thorities. 1t was American miners that
discovered gold in the Klondike district p.
1t Is through American seaports, Juneau
and st. Michael, that the northward immi.
grafton has since poured In and that sun.
plies are forwarded absolutely nothing
was done by the Canadian authorities for
the maintenance OF law and order In the