coal trade bulletin - Clpdigital.org

•50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
can citizenship. There is more reason in figur­
ing the citizen's right and inteiest in any undeveloped
minerals as a double one: First, that
measured by the possibility of the mineral being
mined and thus made, useful at a cosi to him that
shall not be unnecessary high, and second, his
right to an equal chance to undertake mining
within the limits of his own ability. He has abso­
lutely no right to a speculative profit from public
mineral lands, and his profit as a producer should
be measured by his own productive contribution.
It follows that it is absurd to talk about free or
unconditional grants of mineral land as a per­
quisite of American citizenship. The privilege
should pass only on condition of productive labor.
The real intent ancl, in fact, the stated purpose of
our niining statutes is development which means
use, and some attempt has been made in each law
to make that the condition of occupancy of mineral
land. This principle seems absolutely right, ancl
new legislation needs only to enforce the idea best
set forth by Mr. Kirby at the Tonopah meeting of
the Mining congress—"Dig or get off the claim."
As I remember his plain talk on the facts, we do
not need to blame either Congress or the Land
Department for the paralysis of niining districts.
but only look around the camp and see the idle
claims whose owners are waiting for something
to turn up and somebody else to turn it up. The
law needs to offer Opportunity only to the mineral
entryman who uses that opportunity. Equal opportunity
is more theoretical than practical with
men who are unequal in capacity and purpose.
The use the citizen is to make of the land should
be the measure of his right ancl privilege.
In the matter of acreages, the various mineral
land laws present some curious features. The
law maker appears to have harked back to the
homestead idea, but it takes little experience to
show that 160 acres, which will provide a home
on the land, count for little, for instance, in the
opening of a coal mine that will have a halfmillion
ton annual output and involve a half-million
dollar investment. These legal obstacles
naturally resulted in the creation of a class of
dummy entrymen and speculative middlemen, who
grabbed government land for the purpose of selling
it to the bona-fide coal operators. Experience
shows that it is a purposeless ancl bad economic
policy for the gocernTnent to dispose of such mineral
lands in small parcels, simply to give everyone
his chance. Let the* particular use to which
the land is to be put determine the
APPROPRIATE ACREAGE.
and give the man who is to put tlie land to tiiat
use the chance to deal directly with the federal
owner, and not force; him to pay an idle middle­
man's profit.
With these purposes in mind, and with clue re­
gard for changed conditions, both in the mining
industry and in public opinion, bow can federal
legislation meet the nation's need? As a summary
I can do no better than express my concep­
tion of the main essentials of a new mining code,
following in general the analysis of the whole
problem recently outlined by the special committee
of the Mining and Metallurgy Society of
America:
First: Land classification is the duty of the
landlord, private or federal, as a preliminary to
the disposition of any or all of the natural re­
sources the land contains. Separation of surface
and mineral rights follows as the logical result of
classification, wherever there is any reason to consider
that there may be more than one estate in
tlie land
Second: While the title to tbe surface of lands
suitable for agricultural use should be granted in
fee, thus continuing the wise policy of encouraging
home-making, public interest and the need of protecting
the consumer against private monopoly are
believed to justify the retention in the government
of such surface resources as timber and water
power, because their cheapest and fullest use is
best secured by operation in large units. Even
more important is the reservation by the govern­
ment, at the time that the surface patent is
granted, of all mineral wealth beneath the surface
for separate disposition, under mineral land laws.
in private transfers of land the reservation of
mineral rights is becoming more and more the
common practice.
Third: The possessory title to the mineral
should be retained in the government, not for the
purpose of asserting any theory of "sovereign
patrimony" or "••egalian right," but simply as a
practical method of assuring development under
the best conditions. Let us regard the federal
government as a trustee rather than as a sover­
eign landlord, and the idea ancl purpose of proprietorship
by tbe people become more easily understood.
The application of the lease idea to the mining
of precious metals, while logical in certain re­
spects, is not at all of comparable importance with
its application to what have been termed "public
utility" mineral resources, such as coal, petroleum,
phosphate and potash. The utilization of this
class of resources is of prime importance, and
questions relating to their disposition have a practical
rather than an academic interest.
Leasehold has the advantage over permanent
alienation in that it allows the government to
EXERCISE CONTINUED CONTROL
in the public interest. Such control is essential
in order to promote use and discourage speculative
non-use. to prevent control of large land hold­
ings by powerful corporations for such monopoli-