Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1907-02-27

lccr can be developed Look q, :, umber of failures in the Ter,,o..
 q elsewhere, that give silee, ,..n Il ony to the fact that there arc ,,... hanccs in the mining business v.. on take into consideration all ines, and the law must apply ,o .u per cent of the gross products !. hole lot more than the actual e,,, aluc. And l say, the mining indus,, ikcn altogether, will in no way nos, ct 20 per cent. That is to say On CT cent of the gross product of ,n mines .is in excess of the actual e,.. lluc of the mines.
 ''l understand that some are ty,;,. make this political question L., nc say right here and now, that m, larty that will take as it's nla,f.. md principles, that all mines mus, ,., only be taxed upon the. macbi,o,, ut upon the entire gross produe, ., we'll. will meet the most overwhelmis, lcfcat imaginable on such an issue h, ore the people of this Terr,or h. ausc, first and foremost, it is no, riyh, and right will prevail. Look at h. taichood question; there was a small rowd trying to force something ,h,, was not right down the throats of ,h, >rizonans. But it did not go and su,s measure as this would meet as dc served fate.
 "Furthcrmorc, when you take i, consideration the manner of the ss,ex ment of taxes, as proposed by the gOy crnor, to-wit, the board of equaliza,io, who arc appointed by the governor and removed by the governor at his will The governor is not elected by tb, people, and it responsible to no one i, Arizona; the people have no word to say. The board of equalization are ap pointed by the governor and are free from responsibility to the people.
 "Tbis question of taxation without representation was fought out a long time ago. The mining interests of ,ks Territory should have some considet tion. but if you will notice the present board of equalization you will see that there is not single mining man on ,s board.
 "No. we are not anxious for ,hn particular law, hut we do think that | is by far the best of any plan of tax a,ion that we have become acquainted with. The present system is all right i, theory but woefully unjust in practie, The law now is for the assessor to fl the actual cash value of all property hut, what is the actual cash value of | mine? 1 have in mind a mine that < assessed for $l0,000, and yet this mine has never produced one dollars woriA of ore, and the probabilities are, that it never will, because the vein or de posit il had in mind was never reached, and the mine is now practically aband oncd. Yet for several years last paf it has regularly paid taxes on sio'w valuation. This does not take m con sidcration, in its injustice, the fact th'i this hole in the ground is worse tha' worthless, for more than SlOO,oOO wa' spent for dead work, which today without any value whatever, beeau'' Inc ore was never reached.
 "Thc reason is plain, when you stop and study, why the mining iniere'' would be benefited by the bullion 'aI because the development work or ts' prospect work would not be taxed Y would increase prospecting and deve' opmcnt, and the taxes would not h borne by those who are prospecting and, consequently, would be borne r those mines only which are producing In other words, the actual cash value O T mine depends upon its production " other values are merely guess worS' speculation