The copper era., 1909-10-07
MINING CONGRESS.
Engineer Kirby Takes a Smash at Claim
 Owners.


 gress convened in Nevada last week there was a warm discussion when various papers were read. The prin- cipal speakers were Edmund B. Kirby, mining engineer, of St. Louis and pr. J. A. Holmes, chief of the Tech geological survey.
 Kirby spoke on the paralysis of minsng districts in various sections of the country and his suggestions as to how this might be avoided, met with the strong disapproval of a num- Der of delegates, several of whom voiced their objections on the floor ot the convention.
 Kirby said in part: "Is it not clear as day that by the pressure of in- creasing taxation, every claim may be forced into use or release? When from Mexico to Alaska every claim is either working, or open to prospect ors, does it take a profit to see the result? Does not every prospector know of areas he would like to ex- plore? Does not every miner, every operator, know of places where he would like to dlg? After the real mining industry begins, cannot every one forsee in it's general, steady and permanent prosperity, a better living and more chances for fortune than are possible under the present para lysis?
 "Men of the mining world, the new era awaits your call. You have but to say the magic words, Dig or get off the claim :
 'Analyze all the varied plans and motives of the idle claim owners, and we find that most of them are await ing either in the hope of profiting in some way by the work ot other men, or, with the exception that in the distant future, investors will pay prices which they now decline. The deadlock thus produced, is the deadly paralysis which curses the mining in- dustry today. There is nothing to break it; nothing to force action. There are no expenses. The assess ment work of one hundred dollars an- nually for npatentedclaims, is usual ly faked, and the taxes are nothing, or so trifiing as to be merely nominal
 "Owners can wait forever, and they do so, generation after generation, hoping that some time, in some way, the worn title deeds or faded stock certificates, will enable them to ex- tract fortune from other men. And so great industry languishes, while paralysis, partial or complete, blights every district from the Mex ican line to the frontiers of Alaska. And prospectors have nowhere to go, and miners lack work, while invest ors and the representatives of mining capital are searching this and other countries for opportunities to mine.
 "For centuries mining laws have been saying that no man has the right to hold mineral land idle; that he must dig, or allow others to dig. The application of this principle was effective in small frontier camps where the miners who made the law stood on the ground to enforce it, but as it passed into general law cov- ering vast areas and became depend ent upon the cumbersome machinery of government for enforcement, it was found impossible to compel the continuous operation defined. Some codes were more effective than others, but even the old Mexican law, the finest product of accumulated ex- perience, was only partially success full in this matter.
 "But the question may be raised, how can it help an industry to tax it? The answer is that the industry, the digging out of mineral, is not taxed. Every man is made to pay for occu- pancy, for holding a reservation of mineral ground away from other people who want it. Such a pay ment, when made just large enough l to be uncomfortable, or painful, on an idle claim, would be only small l item in the expense list of an oper- atipg claim, for it takes money to mine. Such an item would never stop, or discourage digging.
 ''In producing mines, it would be far less than the royalties now paid everywhere by miners to idle claim owners. When a man has to pay for the privilege, he will not hold more ground than he intends to work. When the privilege of holding is free, he will naturally grab everything in sight and wait in order to hold up someone else who may want to use it. Let the dog in the manager pay for his manger."