The Topeka state journal., 1897-09-06
KLONDIKE IlfPOSTS.
UNJUST RESTRICTIONS PLACED BY
CANADA ON GOLD MINING.

| Such N Fiscal Scheme May Result HIM Mn
American UftIandcrs' PrOtest--The At
tempt to Enforce This Policy May Cause
Revolution.
According to a telegram from OF
tawa the Dominion government has de-
termined TO submit American gold dig
gers in Canadian territory to treatment
even more vexatious and oppressive
than was originally proposed. Should
it attempt to carry out the regulations
which have been issued it will provoke
upon the part of American uitlanders
in the Klondike district an uprising
similar to that which was planned by
the English uitlanders at Johannesburg,
and which the Jameson raid was intend.
ed to promote.
If the Ottawa authorities had set
about deliberately to exasperate an
american community beyond the bonds
Of endurance, they could have hit upon
no means more, certain to attain their
end than the complex worrying, grind
ing scheme of condscation and taxation
which has actually been devised. That
40 fiscal scheme so CALLING and so merci-
less was ever before put forward by
p1cfessedly liberal government we may
safely affirm when we consider the cir
cumstancss under which it is to be sp-
piled and the extraordinary hardships
and dangers which have to be faced by
the hunters of gold amid the rigors and
lrivations 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, that if a
miner should happen to arrive in the
Yukon gOldfields penniless he could not
locate claim, no matter how promis-
ing might be the surface indications de-
tected by him. In his own interest he
will not wish to disclose the richness Of
his find until he has registered a claim,
but this he cannot do except on the
payment of $l5. sum which, upon the
hypothesis, he dnes not possess.
We viii suppose, however, that
miner has managed to raise the $40
needed to pay the registration fee, but
has had the i'll luck to find the surface
indications imperfectly sustained in the
subsoil, so that during his first year he
is barely able to procure food and lodg-
ing from the proceeds of his diggings.
Then he is confronted by the second re-
quirement of the Dominion government,
which orders him either to pay an an
nual assessment Of 500 or to renounce
his claim, though it might well happen
that the next years digging in another
portion of the claim would disclose q
large amount Of treasure. Again, we
will assume that the gross yield Of a
given claim during a year was 81, 900,
out of which, after the registration fee
and annual assessment demanded by the
government were deducted, there would
remain 1886. Every penny of that
amount would probably be needed for
food, shelter and tools Nevertheless
the miner would encounter the third
requirement. of the Dominion govern
ment. which would call upon him to
pay $500, that is to say. royalty of 20
per cent on the gross yield of his claim.
Not having been able to save cent,
the miner, of course, could not pay the
royalty, and the loss of his claim would
be the penalty. Let us take for granted
that the gross annual yield of a claim
were $4,000 or $4,000. Here again it
is obvious that. if men had been en-
ployed to work it on wages at the rate
of $40 or $15 per day, the exaction of a
90 per cent royalty on the gross yield
would amount practically to a confsca-
ton of the net profit.
Even in the exceptional cases where
from $50, 900 to 800, 900 might be ex-
tracted in single year the demand for
90 per cent royalty would be felt to
be excessive and tyrannical on the part
of a government which had done abso-
lutely nothing to facilitate the workings
of the Yukon goldfields. There never
was a more barefaced attempt to reap
where one has not sown than this of the
Ottawa authorities. 1t was American
miners that discovered gold in the
KIondike district. 1t is through Amer
ican seaports, juneau and St. Michael's,
that the northward immigration has
since poured in and that supplies are for
warded. Absolutely nothing was done
by the Canadian authorities for the
maintenance of law and order in the
gold bearing region until the hope of
grabbing part of the precious harvest
caused them to dispatch thither 20
mounted policemen, a force which pres
emily is to be quadrupled.
Now, if we bear in mind the num-
bers of the treasure seekers that have
gone northward from San Francisco and
Seattle since the gold fever began, we
can see that several thousand able bod
led and adventurous men, almost all of
them in the prime of life, will be assem-
bled at the Klondike during the ap-
preaching winter. A community so en-
inently and almost exclusively virile
would be abundantly able to make laws
for itself and to uphold peace and order,
but it is absurd to suppose that 100 po-
Hcemen can coerce it into submission to
oppressive laws made by outsiders. The
work of ascertaining the gross outcome
of every claim, which is the condition
rorpcedar1f to the intalra of % rner cent