The daily Nome industrial worker., 1915-12-24

The lack of employment in this camp during almost two-thirds o1 tue year finds itself reflected in bus inoss circles Business depends al most entirely on tho pay roll as businessmen arc willing enough to admit when the pay roll has become a vanishing or vanished quantity
 And even now when the mining activity that docs proceed is de- pendent upon the prospecting which former wage workers are carrying on, no less does the we'll being of the camp depend upon the men who stay with the country winter and summer being employed when en- ployment is to be offered.
 It may well occur then to those who are ostentatiously or otherwise interested in the camps develop ment, to reconsider that line along which they have been so ardently travelling.
 Can any form of development which takes stock only Of three or four months activity, and discards the activity possible during the other seven or eight months of win ter. be really considered beneficial, even to the business man? It is quite clear that this Seward Penin- sula, if it's resources are so inex- haustible as is claimed, should be developed along lines which would assure a permanent population gen. eral employment.
 Now no such thing is the case, and as far as the Industrial Worker is concerned we have never been able to observe that the business men have troubled very much whether such year-round develop ment has ever been possible and if so whether it would not be well to strive along those lines
 And right here we may say that this camps welfare depends upon first of all the workers living here, being employed at remunerativo wages summer or winter, and while it is admitted that work has fallen off to a practical zero during the winter time, the only way in which conditions can be restored is by em ploying those who live in Alaska, first of all. all the year round.
 Tn almost all activities during the summer, nevertheless, we see the mining companies give preference to those who go outside in the fail and return in the summer with the first or second faet. No stock is taken of the fact that in Nome and in Seward Peninsula are numbers of men equally capable and equally efficient who are looking for work and cannot find it. We find Nome merchants and Seward Peninsula business men aiding those who stay here in no way to obtain preferen- lial employment, but we do know many business men rustling up help from the chechacoes who will re- turn outside with their wad, ana very wisely we have to say, to the warmer and more equable climates outside.
 Moreover, this condition has tend ed to drive many workers to adopt the custom of coming and going each spring and each fall for they were not long realising that in this way, they were surer of employ ment.
 Winter is the best time here for prospecting. At any rate whether 4 is or not, practically all the discoy- cries that resulted in permanent importance were the work of men who dug deep during the winter.
 It is possible such prospecting offers but little hope for the future and the country has been too well run over to make it very probable that another strike of the richness of the third beach line will ever be discovered On the other hand there are many who boast of the richness of the quartz here, and this Is line of prospecting which t,ar be carried on in winter with just as much success as during the sum mer.
 But neither placer nor quart. prospecting winter or summer car be carried on without a grub stake and it is the men who work fol wages who have been and are tht back bone of all prospecting whici