Valdez daily prospector., 1912-04-09
MINER EAVORS
 LEASING SYSTEM
Old Alaskan says System Favors Prospectors and compeIs
 Development

phur, New, contributes the fol- lowing interesting communica- ton on the subject of the "lcaS- ing" system as it will apply to Alaska:
 The letter from Julius Thomp- son, and the comment thereon by II. Foster Bain, both appear ing i'll your issue of February IT, have aroused desire on my part to add some remarks to the dis cuSSiOn of the contemplated change of the national mining laws from the viewpoint of d prOspector.
 MT. Thompson contends that, i'll order to promote the further development of Alaska, the pros pectOr must be given the utmost facilities for acquiring mineral lands, and that if he cannot ob- tain title to these, and if he should be forced to lease from the government, he will cease t0 prospect and mine in Alaska. I do not agree with him in any of these contentious. l have some personal knowledge of the special conditions rctarding operations in that country, gained during a six years residence there, be ginning in the days preceding the klOndikc boom, when all the dis advantages of that remote reg ion existed tn a considerably greater extent than at the pres ent time. Miners Law" ruled the land then, and it may be safe ly assumed that regulations adopted by small body of men for their own government express with tOlerablc accuracy the don- inant ideas and wants of the in- dividuals. They invariably linn ited individual holdings by cut ting down the size of claims, by allowing only one claim in a district tO each person CrXccpt the discovcrer of new deposits, who could hold two claims). by not tnlcrating locations by proxy, and in number of other ways. If proSpectOrS who have every thing SO entirely their own way as these Alaskan pioneers had il, do not become land-grabbcrs, il would appear extremely unlikely that they would at any time make much of an Outcry fop more land. Whoever knows the real pros pcctor in his haunts knows all so that he is usually too busy trying to develop his discovery to bother about adjoining land, and that he always welcomes ncighbors who will get in and dig and by their additional finds enhance the value of his own. If he could eliminate those oth- CT "prOspectorS" who will sur round his discovery locations and, without making the slight est effort to contribute to the de- vclopmcnt of the country, await an uncarned increment accruing from the prOspcctor's labors, he would be quite content with a minimum acreage, so long as it included his orcbody.
 Leasing was in vogue on every creek along the Yukon that had enough pay" Co justify it, and 1t is astonishing to learn from MT. Thompson that 90 per cent. of the present population of Alaska condemn the practice as un-American. The natural infer ence is that now only 10 per cent. of the residents of Alaska are prospectors and miners, as these take kindly to leasing wherever they go, and, providing tho terms are otherwise favorable, it is hardly conceivable that they would develop a prejudice against leasing from the govern ment. Of course, laws which a great majority of an American community do not want should not be forced on them, but on tho other hand, a general objec- ton to the passage of new laws should not be assumed merely on the ground of a few assertions which are emphaticalIy< contra dicted by the past actions of the persons about whom they, are made. In my opinion; the state rhent is also quite unwarranted that nothing but title to the land will satisfy the prospector. He Very rarely obtains United