10 CHARLES KIRCHOFF 



at hand, when the nation is justified in imposing conditions 

 not hitherto warranted. Conspicuous among these should be 

 a rigid enforcement of the obhgation to put a stop to wanton 

 waste. 



In the last few years a good deal of alarm has been felt 

 that very dangerous monopolies may be created through the 

 control of our mineral resources by powerful consolidations 

 of capital. At the first blush, in studying the magnitude of 

 those resources, we may feel inclined to dismiss the danger as 

 remote. It assumes a somewhat different aspect, however, 

 when we begin to differentiate. The conditions affecting the 

 industrial utilization of mineral property vary greatly, and 

 a closer study reveals the fact that a relatively small number 

 of the deposits, through favoring circumstances, give their 

 possessors special advantages. The deposits may be excep- 

 tionally rich or extensive, particularly pure, or may be so 

 located with reference to the markets that they are capable 

 cf yielding an adequate supply at a cost far below others. 

 These advantages may represent enormous sums, and can 

 therefore be capitalized correspondingly. Unless those who 

 control them extort undue returns, measured by earning 

 capacity, the owners of the other less favorably located 

 deposits cannot compete and live. Of course, the risk is 

 always run by those who secure control of the best of the 

 mines that new deposits as valuable may be discovered else- 

 where, just as those who utilize monopolies based upon patents 

 take the chance that inventive genius, stimulated by oppor- 

 tunity, made exceptionally artificial, find means to dispute 

 exclusive possession. There may be iron ore deposits as rich 

 and as great as any on the Lake Superior ranges in the Rocky 

 mountain region, yet for a generation to come they might as 

 well be non existent, so far as the controlling position of the 

 United States Steel corporation is concerned. An enormous 

 power for good or evil may be wielded by groups of capitalists 

 who control the commercially available mineral resources, 

 though they constitute only a small fraction of the total 

 assets of mineral wealth of the country. The fact that in 

 most cases the earning capacity of these consolidations has 

 been rated exceedingly high, furnished a premium on the 



