The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1905-06-09
THE RISKS OF MINING.
Favorably Compared With Those Of
other Industries.


By dint of hammering the mining
industry and by CHASING all invest
ments in stocks of mining companies
Us among the Improbable risk, bank
ers and other money lenders succeeded
in impressing on the minds of invest
ors that mining should be considered
in the light of a gambling venture.
Nothing is further from the truth.
Mining. and we are now considering
legitimate mining only, is conducted on
rs safe lines as any other business, SAT-
err, in fact, than is the banking business
Us a rule. for Mrs. Chadwick would
have had considerable difficulty in OBJ
tanning the funds of a mining com
pany on her personal note and a conf
dence tale.
Mining companies are as conserva-
tive as other business associations,
and if there is one business where econ
omv is practiccd more than in any
other. it is in mining operations. There
is a desire on the part of mine manag-
ars to open the mines in the most prac-
teal way, at the very least expense,
md to save all the values possible.
To this end experiments and tests
are made SO that the most modern and
effective machinery and the best meth
DDS of reduction may be applied to the
work.
Stockholders in legitimate mining
companies are kept informed as to the
amount of work performed, the expens-
es. profits and the available funds and
ore reserves. Depositors in savings
banks as a rule know nothing of the in
ternal affairs of the banks in which
they place, and often lose, their money.
Savings banks pay from 3 to 81. per
cent. with no more security than is
offered by mining companies with good
properties which pay from Is to 80
per cent profit.
1t would be folly To assert that all
mining companies are successful, but
the majority of those organized by
honorable men and conducted on bus
mess lines are. for men who make a
business Of mining are careful in the
selection of properties.
But the number of failures are not
as great as in other industries. For
instance: In April of this year the
failures in commercial lines in the
United States numbered S33, with liza
biliticS of $S,056, 500. During the
same period six banks suspended owing
their depositors 81, 900.
If So mining companies, or even
six, had failed in one month, what a
howl the financial papers and the bank
ers would make! and how the %"cOnser-
v~ative' money lenders would use the
to educate people to lend them
money at ) per cent so that they might
invest in mining stocks and other Sc
c~uritieS which they had warned their
against.
In discussing the question the United
States Investor compares mining with
railroad business and makes the follow
ing statement:
In 1892. which was an excellent year
for railways, the amount paid in divi-
denis upon the $6,07S,000, 900 capital
stock was SIS 200, 900, an average of
2.97 per cent; in the year 1897, when
the capital was $5,453, 100000, the divi-
dcnds we're only $~S2,630,000, or an av-
rcage of Isl per cent; over 20 per cent
of the railroad stocks paid no dividends
in the latter year. Compared with that
thc mining business as Il whole is fairly
remunerative upon the average. The
OBJ Objectionable points about mining
shares as Investments are to be found
in the methods more than the actual
conditions. Legitimate mining is prob
ably more general than is believed; and
though veins frequently "peter out.
the risks thereof are not so e%XtraOrdi-
nary As is usually thought. Blu this
applies only to legitimate mining bust
ness. done at the mine. and not merely
in the New York office of the company.