The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1900-06-16
,,cpr1YA GAMBLERS CHANCE
=. No seIf-Regulating Ten
aeuey Whatever About the Pro-
auction of Gold.

ia Elondike miners uurihS ioo' an"
,Sas at SIS. 900, 900, certainly a very con-
..otive estimate. Yet this amount ex-
oads Inv more than $50, 00o, 900 the value
" all the gold that has been brought
w. of the Klondike. If we add to it
average of two dollars per day for
y year 1.-THE writer well said that
O,bey would refuse in a civilized coun-
~ ~ do the work they did do" at four
dnIlars per day. for each miner who
cave up a year of his life in this enter
nrise. we have the sum of $3.50, 900. 900,
and vet the gold which the Klondike
has Welded would not purchase e
sixth of this amount.
To these facts were true of almost
auy other industry people would turn
away to other pursuits. But the knowl-
odce of these facts does not drive peo-
rle out OF gold mining. Gold mining
is a venture of so speculative a charac-
fer as to take it almost wholly out of
the category of ordinaryindustries. In
almost no other enterprise does even
the most sanguine expect to make very
much more than the average of those
who continue in the business unless he
enioys some very exceptional advan-
tage, such as discriminating freight
rates, for example. But the goldminer
is not dismayed by the fact, which he
fully realizes, that the average return
is a heavy net loss; he knows of n very
few eases where princely fortunes have
been made by men who had no excep-
tional advantages, but exceptional
luck, and every miner hopes to be the
one in a thousand who gains wealth
from the mines. Still the gambling goes
On. The miner keeps on till his last
cent is gone, and then reluctantly goes
to some other employment for a little
while till he can save enough to get a
new outfit-once in awhile he makes a
strike" which prolongs the agony a
little and tides him over a few months
more than usual. The rich r%anchman
steadily sinks all the profits of his
ranch in mining ventures, the clerk
pinches the spending of his meager sal
airy that he may venture a little in the
mines. Occasionally he gets back more
than he has put in, and this encourages
him to venture more, and usually lose
II all.
The experience of the Klondike mines
has not been exceptional in this re-
spect. 1t is only a repetition of Cali
fornia, of Australia and of what has
been for the last generation going on
in the Rocky mountains.
Our industries must year by year
sustain themselves, as a rule, or per-
ish. But gold mining is a parasite in
dustry. 1t consumes what itself pro-
duces, and in addition feeds on the sur
plus of staple industries. Were this
not true we should, of course, find that
the impetus to gold mining would be
greatly increased whenever prices were
very low ii. e., when gold appreciates),
and that it would languish when prices
rise. But it does nothing of the sort.
Increased production of gold is almost
purely accidental. 1t is quite as likely
to decline when prices are low, and to
rise when prices are high, as the re-
verse. General prices, for example, in
1873 were nearly double those of 1898,
yet the gold produced in 1898 was bare
ly one-third more than in the former
year. On the other hand, from 1896 to
1898, with general prices increasing Is
per cent, the output of the gold mines
OF the world also increased more than
40 per cent. But this does not estab-
iish any rule either in the opposite di-
rection. because there is no rule by
which production of gold can be fore
east.
The practical application of this
TACT is not far to seek. There is no
self-regulating tendency whatever
ABOUT the production Of gold. and
those are reckoning on wholly I'M
certain data who suppose that the
recent gold discoveries have effective
~ settled any monetary question. |
The gold production of 1900 seems
hkely TO be the greatest in the worlds
history. Whether the production of
isol will be still larger, perhaps
twice as large, OIL only half as great,
Is a question upon which only blind
"a pc uiuut. All experience
OF the past tends to show the use
iessness of predictions.
There is n fact which seems to
obscure the minds of many persons
on this point. That is, that new
processes now enable much more
goid to be extracted from given mines
'nan formerly, or, to be more exact,
make 1t possible to utilize ores Of
lower grade. But a moments clear
rejection makes it evident that this
consideration influences only the alb
solute amount of the metal, and not
the relative quantity in successive
While we may expect that
gold will be obtained in the
next ten years than would have been
procured without these processes,
mere is nothing about these processes
winch tends in the least to limit fiuc-
tuations. Whether more or less gold
Will be obtained depends still on
causes which are almost wholly acct
and there is every reason to
suppose that fluctuations in gold pro-
auction will be as violent, as erratic,
I'M ne 4