Bisbee daily review., 1908-11-13
EATEN EXPLAINS
 LAWS OBJECTIONS
Mexico Should Have Been More Frank With Us About . Proposed Regulation.
CLOS Angeles Herald)

c. w Patten, autor and mining cs pert, is a guest at the Angelus for a few days, while en route to San Fran cisco, Patten, who controls a third interest in the Queen Louise gold mines, and wao also has holdings in the newly discovered Sylvanite ois trict of New Mexico, speaking yester- day of the failure to pass the so-calleu ''anti-foreign mining law" in Mexico, said:
 The decisive defeat of Mexico's proposed anti-foreign miniug law, as embodied in article IA, will result in an immediate and marked increase in mining activity throughout the re- public. Confidence is already restor- ed in great degree and with a full un- derstanding of the true scope and purpose of the article as 1t was ln- tended to operate, and the consequent satisfaction as to the governments good aith in the matter, American capital will again be on the alert for mining investments in the sister re- public. It seems that the much ais cussed article was inserted as mucH for the protection of foreign invest
 
 echo of the cry, Mexico for the Mexi- cans'
 Obviously, if it becomes necessary for all mining companies to organize with small, nominal capital, unuei Mexican laws, and so to become off. cially recorded and recognized, it will enable the department of mines IL more intelligently> answer queries from abroad as to the stability of this or that company, many of which, under the present law, are unknowIr tn the department Tic minister oI fomento, Senor Lie Don Olegarlo -s.pJilna, has been quoted as saying that Mexico had been placed in a most embarrassing position, had to sustain.
 Because of it's inability to properly answer requests for information as to stocks purchased in companies of which the department of mines was in partial or complete ignorance, it be- came necessary to incorporate article IA in the projected mining laws. The immediate result of the move was ap- parent in the withholding of foreign capital, and in great hue and cry raised by the pro-foreign element, both in Mexico and abroad.
 Tn the period of suspense between the proposal and defeat of the law. many millions were lost to Mexico. Had the article stated clearly that for eign companies needed but to organ ize development companies under Mexican law with nominal capital, ana that holding companies, with their full share capital could be organized uut- side the republic, criticism would have been much less severe. Grant ing that any government has full and perfect right to complete knowledge of mining activities within it's bor- ! ders, with annual reports of opera tions, we can see what inestimable value such a provision as carried in article IA, if somewhat modified, would be to investors, both in the re- public and abroad Annually, thou sands upon thousands of dollars would be saved from wildcat invest ments and ultimately directed into legitimate channels. Undoubtedly, the department chose a very bad time for proposing the change in tae pres
 ent law, which is very liberal. The proposal, coming as it did during the financial stringeney, combined with :, the uncertainty as 70 it's full provis- ions, and somewhat tactless ad- vocacy of the measure, has given Mex ican mining a blow from which it will take long time to recover"