SALE OF MINERAL LANDS. 437 



years of its history it has astonished the world, and its chief 

 glories are still to come. The arts, the sciences, the refine- 

 ments of life, are to find a favored home in California. 



Why is it then that the permanent population of the state 

 has not increased more rapidly ? Why have so many of the 

 early immigrants left her shores, never to return, by their de- 

 parture depriving her of the greatest element of wealth ? The 

 great cause is the mismanagement of land-titles by the federal 

 government, and the consequence is, that the people have been 

 unable to obtain secure homes, and therefore have gone to the 

 Eastern states, where they could find permanent residences. 

 This mismanagement has prevailed both in the mineral and 

 agricultural districts, and has produced incalculable evils. 



§ 307. Sale of Mineral Lands. — The welfare of every civ- 

 ilized state requires a permanent population, a well-regulated 

 society, a steady business, and a secure investment of capital 

 proportionate to the industrial ability and production of the 

 people. These requisites are indispensable to all national pros- 

 perity. Their want, if long continued, must inevitably be fol- 

 lowed by national ruin. They are wanting in a large portion 

 of California. 



In the moral and social, as well as in the physical world, 

 cause and elFect are inseparably connected ; adequate means 

 never fail in leading to correspondent ends ; prosperity or ruin 

 comes not by mere chance, but is the necessary result of the 

 adoption of good or evil counsel. The ill-regulated society 

 and unsound condition of business in our state, are traceable 

 mainly to the insecure tenure of our lands ; and as a necessary 

 means to attain social, commercial, and individual health, we 

 must have perfect land-titles. I shall speak first of the min- 

 eral counties. 



It is a necessary consequence of the want of secure land- 

 titles in the mining districts, that the inhabitants should be 

 unsettled- There is nothing to fix them in any one place, while 

 many motives impel them to frequent removals ; and the result 

 is, that a considerable portion of the mining population is truly 



