EFFECT OF UNCERTAINTY OF TENURE.

The rules, regulations and customs of the miners were the work of men who were prospectors, and were admirably adapted for the mining operations that called them into being. Each man and his partner or partners worked their own claim. When the early placers were worked out, however, and the development of the mining industry demanded not so much accessibility to the public domain as capital for the successful exploitation of quartz mines, security of title and a declaration of federal policy with reference to the public mineral lands became paramount. The uncertain character of the tenure of the land, too, reacted upon the mining population, made their future uncertain and shifty, and prevented the home-building so essential to the settling up and development of the mining sections of the State. "Their enterprises," says Ross Browne, "generally were undertaken for the purpose of making the most profit in a brief time. There was no proper care for a distant future; and without such care no society is sound, no State truly prosperous. If a claim could, by hastily washing, be made to pay $10 per day to the hand for three months, or $6 for three years by careful washing, the hasty washing was preferred. If a fertile valley that would have yielded a revenue of $5 per acre for century after century to a farmer could be made to yield. $5 per day to a miner for one summer, its loam was washed away, and a useless and ugly bed of gravel left in its place. The flumes, the ditches, the dwellings, the roads and the towns were constructed with almost exclusive regard to immediate wants. * * * The claims were made small, so that everybody should have a chance to get one; but the pay-dirt was soon exhausted, and then there must be a move. In such a state of affairs miners generally could not send for their families or make elegant homes. Living alone and lacking the influences and amusements of home-life, they became wasteful and wild. Possessing no title to the land, they did nothing to give it value, and were ready to abandon it at any moment. The farmers, merchants, and other fixed

residents of the mining counties were agitated and frightened nearly every year by the danger of migration of the miners to some distant place. One year it is Peru; another it is British Columbia, Idaho, Reese River, Pahranagat or Arizona; and it may next be Brazil, Liberia, or Central Africa, for all we know."

EXECUTIVE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CONGRESSIONAL ACTION.

Meanwhile congress steadily pursued its policy of "generous inaction." The great battle of whether California

should be admitted as a slave or a free state had to be fought out, and all things else had to wait. It took longer to admit California into the Union than to fight the Mexican War. The executive branches of the government, however, never lost sight of the necessity of some definite federal legislative action.

On December 4, 1849, President Taylor, in his inaugural message, after stating that he thought the establishment of a branch mint in California would afford facilities to those engaged in mining "as well as to the government in the disposition of the mineral lands," says:

"In order that the situation and character of the principal mineral deposits in California may be ascertained, I recommend that a geological and mineralogical exploration be connected with the linear surveys, and that the mineral lands be divided into small lots suitable for mining, and be disposed of, by sale or lease, so as to give our citizens an opportunity of procuring a permanent right of property in the soil. This would seem to be as important to the success of mining as of agricultural pursuits."

These recommendations, so simple and so just, were, however, not the burden of the official report of Mr. Ewing, the Secretary of the Interior, who had evidently had some smattering of the Spanish code of mining, and according to whom the division, disposition and management of the mines would require much detail. It was due to the nation, he

claimed, that this rich deposit of mineral wealth should be made so productive, as, in time, to pay the expense of its acquisition. He advocated the expediency of the government furnishing scientific aid and directions to the lessees and purchasers of the mines and establishing a mint in the mines, so that the gold collected could be delivered into the custody of an officer of the mint, and out of the amount so collected and deposited a percentage could be deducted, and the balance paid to the miner in coin, stamped bullion, · or in drafts on the treasury, at his option. "The gold in the mine, after it is gathered, until brought into the mint, should be and remain the property of the United States."

Senator Fremont, five days after the admission of California into the Union, introduced the first federal mining bill concerning the public lands of the new acquisition. The bill was a complicated one, and, in principle, contemplated the ganting of permits, by agents appointed by the government, to work mines of limited and specified quantities, upon the payment of a stipulated sum. The bill passed the Senate, but failed of passage in the House. Senator Felch, chairman of the committee on public lands, in the course of the debate on the Fremont bill, offered a substitute which championed the principles of free mining, but it was defeated in the Senate. Both in the permit to be obtained under the Fremont bill, and in the land to be acquired under the Felch bill, a placer was limited to thirty feet square, and a quartz mine to two hundred and ten feet square, the lines to be cardinal points.

President Taylor died in the fall of 1850, and on December 2, 1850, President Fillmore, in his message to Congress, said: "I also beg leave to call your attention to the propriety of extending at an early day our system of land laws, with such modifications as may be necessary, over the State of California and the territories of Utah and New Mexico. The mineral lands of California will, of course, form an exception to any general system which may be adopted. Various methods of disposing of them have been suggested. I

was at first inclined to favor the system of leasing, as it seemed to promise the largest revenue to the government, and to afford the best security against monopolies; but further reflection and our experience in leasing the lead mines and selling lands upon credit, have brought my mind to the conclusion that there would be great difficulty in collecting the rents, and that the relation of debtor and creditor between the citizens and the government would be attended with many mischievous consequences. I therefore recommend that instead of retaining the mineral lands under the. permanent control of the government, they be divided into small parcels and sold, under such restrictions as to quantity and time as will insure the best price and guard most effectually against combinations of capitalists to obtain monopolies." The first glimmer of congressional action with reference to the mineral lands in California was by the Act of March 3, 1853, "for the survey of public lands in California, the granting of pre-emption rights therein, and for other purposes," directing that "none other than township lines shall be surveyed where the lands are mineral or are deemed unfit for cultivation," excluding in express terms “mineral lands” from the pre-emption act of September 4th, 1841, and further interdicting "any person" from obtaining "the benefits of this act by a settlement or location on mineral lands."

The Secretary of the Interior, Caleb B. Smith, in his annual report for 1861 (The Public Domain, page 318), called the attention of Congress to the subject in the following words:

"The valuable and extensive mineral lands owned by the government in California and New Mexico have hitherto produced no revenue. All who chose to do so have been permitted to work them without limitation. It is believed that no other government owning valuable mineral lands has ever refused to avail itself of the opportunity of deriving a revenue from the privilege of mining such lands. They are the property of the whole people, and it would be obviously just and proper to require those who reap the ad

vantages of mining them to pay a reasonable amount as a consideration of the advantages enjoyed."

The Commissioner of the General Land Office, in his annual report of 1862 (The Public Domain, page 318), after a review of the area of the precious metal bearing territory and the yield from the mines, gave the following opinion:

"An immense revenue may readily be obtained by subjecting the public mines either to lease under quarterly payments or quarterly tax as seigniorage upon the actual product, under a well-regulated and efficient system, which would stimulate the energies of miners and capitalists by securing to such classes an undisputed interest in localities so specified, and, when the conditions as to payment for the usufruct are complied with, for unlimited periods, and while effecting this beneficial result to them would relieve the necessities of the Republic."

In 1863, the Commissioner of the General Land Office again called attention to the mineral lands (The Public Domain, pages 318-319), recommending legislation for "opening the mines and minerals of the public domain, the property of the nation, to the occupancy of all loyal citizens, subject, as far as compatible with moderate seigniorage, to existing customs and usages, conceding to the discoverer for a small sum a right to one mine, placer or lead (quartz), with a pre-emptive right in the same district to an additional claim, both to be held for the term of one year, for testing the value." Collectors of internal revenue were to be the collectors of the royalty.

In his message of December 6, 1864, President Lincoln called the attention of Congress to the mineral lands:

"As intimately connected with and promotive of this material growth of the nation, I ask the attention of Congress to the valuable information and important recommendations relating to the public lands and mineral discoveries contained in the report of the Secretary of the Interior, which is herewith transmitted."

The Commissioner of the General Land Office, in his report for 1865, after referring to the fact that the organiza