The Winslow mail., 1900-07-19
MERELY A GAMBLERS CHANCE
There Is No SeIf-RecuIating Ten
dency Whatever About the Pro-
ductiOn of Gold.


has estimated the expenses incurred by
the Klondike miners during 1897 and
1898 at $75 100000, certainly very con-
servative estimate. Yet this amount eX-
ceeds by more than $50, 900, 900 the value
of all the gold that has been brought
out of the Klondike. If we add to it
an average of two dollars per day for
one year (the writer we'll said that
'they would refuse in civilized coun-
try to do the work they did do at four
dollars per day. for each miner who
gave up year of his life in this enter
prise, we have the sum of $3.50, 900 900,
and yet the gold which the Klondike
has yielded would not purchase one
sixth of this amount.
If these facts were true of almost
any other industry people would turn
away to other pursuits. But the knowl-
edge of these facts does not drive peo-
pie out of gold mining. Gold mining
is venture of so speculative charac-
ter as to take it almost wholly out of
the category of ordinary industries. 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
enjoys some very exceptional advan-
tage, such as discriminating freight
rates, for example. But the gold miner
is not dismayed by the fact, which he
fully realizes, that the average return
is a heavy net loss; he knows of a very
few cases 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 little
while till he can save enough to get
new outfit-once in awhile he makes
''strike" which prolongs the agony
little and tides him over a few months
more than usual The rich ranchman
steadily sinks all the profits of his
ranch in mining ventures, the clerk
pinches the spending of his meager sal
ary that he may venture little in the
mines. Occasionally he gets back more
than he has put in, and this encourages
him to venture more, and usually lose
it all.
The experience of the Klondike mines
has not been exceptional in this re-
,pect. 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 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
1878 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
1893, 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-
lish any rule either in the opposite di-
rection, because there is no rule by
which production of gold can be fore
cast.
The practical application of this
fact is not far to seek There is no
self-regulating tendency whatever
about the production of gold, and
those are reckoning on wholly un-
certain data who suppose that the
recent gold discoveries have effective
ly settled any monetary question.
The gold production of 1900 seems
likely to be the greatest in the worlds
history. Whether the production of
1901 will be still larger, perhaps
twice as large, or only half as great,
is question upon which only blind
guesses can be made All experience
of the past tends the
lessness of predictions.
." '''