34 



farmers. It is desired to point these out as tlie true causes of the lack 

 f mineral development in this district and to suggest a remedy. 



Others give as the causes the depending on a foreign market for 

 our ores, extravagance and bad management, with &n ill advised expen- 

 diture of too much money on the surface, before the mine is developed 

 in depth, or to untrue and glowing promises, of " millions of tons of ore 

 in sight " on the part of promoters of a new enterprise. There is no 

 doubt that in some cases, these causes have heli)ed to close the en- 

 terprise and deter others from embarking in a similar mine or 

 property. 



In Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and British Columbia, the Crown, 

 or Provincial Government, owns the minerals, and issues licences to 

 parties desiring to open and work mines, and in these Provinces the 

 business of mining is largely and most successfully carried on. In 

 Quebec and Ontario the minerals are at present sold along with the 

 soil, and the birth right and portion of the explorer, prospector or 

 miner, is thus given to the farmer, or, still worse, to the speculator in 

 mining lands, and these sons of toil have to beg for terms from the 

 miserly farruer, or independent and extortionate land owner or specu- 

 latoi". Mining lands have been sold in this way during the last forty 

 r fifty years in Quebec and Ontario ; some few, it is true, are being 

 worked, but the great majority of the most valuable mining lands and 

 mines are in the hands of speculators, or of parties who will not work 

 them, and who ask for the mines and pi'operties an exhorbitant price 

 should an intending purchaser approach them. 



This state of affairs, or the act of the Local Legislators selling the 

 minei'als, instead of giving a lease or license, and compelling the owner 

 to work the mine or quarry, or have it revert to the Government, or 

 exacting a low rent or royalty, under such lea.e or license, from the 

 profits dei-ived from working the mine, is the cause of so many valuable 

 properties being locked up, as it were, and development retarded, and 

 the mining industry does not receive the attention it would, if these 

 mining lands remained in the hands of the Government. In proof of 

 this may be mentioned the vast amount of mineral land held by com- 

 panies and speculators ; in the Lake district and in eastern Ontario alone 

 the area thus held amounts to many millions of acres of the best mineral 



