The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-11-15
THE MINING CODE.
Draft of the Proposed Law Sub
mitted to Mining Men.

United States. set IN motion by the
action of the recent mining congress. is
quite active in California, where the
majority of the miners seem to favor
a radical change in the system Of 10
eating and acquiring title to mineral
lands. In Z, recent letter to the san
Francisco Mining and Scientific Press,
w. s. Keyes takes strong ground in
favor of placing the United States in
line with the rest Of the civilized
world. which has, with the single eX-
ceTtion OF Bolivia, discarded the old
Spanish idea of location and owner
ship, according to the apex of the vein.
Mr.. keyes is an eminent mining en-
gineer who has for so years lahOred
for a change in the existing system.
He was a member OF the committee on
revision Of the laws. appointed by the
mining congress, and the proposed code
now being put in shape for Dresenta-
ton to congress was in a great meas
ure based upon the results of his in
vestigations. In the letter cited he
says:
ASSESSMENT WORK.
THE proposal of Mr.. Freeland to
commute the annual amount of work
by a payment in cash is an effort to do
away with the abuse caused by neglect
to do the work, as required by law, or
its Sinking by false affidavits. My
own opinion is that such payment
81 I'D he merely permissive, and that
tn miner who chooses to work should
be allowed to do SO. ! have a letter
from 4 we'll known mining man in the
gold belt who writes: The doing OF
500 worth of work annually is per
feet farce
"A well known delegate to the last
convention held in this city informed
me that in his county he knew of
vast number of locations held for more
than 20 years on which not a stroke of
work had been done since the original
location. The same thing was said TO
me by one OF my colleagues at the
meeting Of the national committee in
Denver. His precise words were:
Whole districts in my neighborhood
have been held for years without any
work; the claimants viii neither work
themseiN nor will they let anyone
else work. Ii is a crying evil which has
become intolerable. Some means should
be found to make these men either
work or let go How large d percent
age Of The California gold belt is so
held / do not know, but it is, l am
sure. very great"
Congressman Shafroth. in speaking
OF the present mining code, said: Il
have not given the matter sufficient
thought TO say just what changes
should be made in the law bal I have
long been of the opinion that some
thing shonld be done TO prevent the
litigation which has grown out of the
present system OF locating and acQuir
ing title TO mineral lands. Whatever
changes are made should he radical
and should be SO Sreat an improvement
upon the present laws that the advant-
age IL the miner and 10 the United
States would be perfectly plain, other
wise [ do not think that there will be
any hope of a change in the law.
PREFERS SURFACE LOCATIONS.
Personally [ am inclined TO the be-
lief that il would be best 70 have an
absolute surface location, cOnfining the
claimant TO his side line and making
the claims sufficiently large to satisfy
a reaSona bic ambition, I do not favor
the leasing system in vogue in many
mining countries Of the world as it is
contrary tc the principles of the gov
ernment Of the United States. and DO
not suppose tina any attempt viii be
made 70 lptrocuce i here. Neither do
] think that the claims should he eX-
cessivelT large, as il would not be fair
to give mining companies too much
territory. but there is no question in
my mind of the necessity FOR such a
change in the law as would give the
claimant absolute title to his ground
from the SKY 10 INC center OF the C4rIn.
Whatever is done. however, must be
done with the utmost care and must
be manifestly in the interest of the
miner. Any attempt TO modify or ex-
plain the law as it stands would be
dangerous. as it would only tend to
complicate q situation which is already
sufficiently complicated.'
Some changes might be made in the
present mining CODE said c. S
Thomas which would operate as a
palliative Of existing evils but when a
patient is suffering from q disease or u
combination Of diseases which is Ger
tain to cause death or the amputation
Of a limb. it seems to me that the best
thing to do is TO call III the surgeon. I
do not believe in any further tinkering
with the laws. We have been trying
to make local conditions fiji the entire
country, and after % years of ex-
perienee the only result is that the
situation is worse than ever. Very
early in the history of the present law
it was seen by some that 1t would
lead tc just the complications that are
complained of, and an effort was made
to pass a new law in 1878 upon the re-
port Of the public lands commission
One reason of the failure of that at
empt was that il was thought that the