THE NATION'S UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES 



195 



SOME COAL LANDS SHOULD BE HELD FOR 

 THE NAVY 



A fixed minimum annual royalty would 

 conduce to operation and prevent the 

 holding of lands out of use. These are 

 matters, however, of regulation upon 

 which much thought should be expended, 

 and the experience of other lands will be 

 found helpful. If the principle of the 

 homestead law is adopted, and one lease 

 only permitted to any one person or 

 group of persons, and all leases made 

 non-transferable, excepting with the con- 

 sent of a designated authority, it would 

 seem that monopoly could be prevented. 

 I would, however, add one other pre- 

 caution — that in each field a large body 

 of the coal land be reserved, so that the 

 public and the navy might be rendered 

 independent of private supplies if that 

 should become necessary. 



The attraction of a leasing system is 

 that it enables an operator to put all of 

 his capital into the promotion of his 

 enterprise, no investment being needed 

 for the purchase of the land. This makes 

 it possible for the man of comparatively 

 small means to become a coal mine 

 operator. The lessee is pleased to pay 

 the government a royalty in lieu of tying 

 up a large amount of capital in the land 

 itself. 



There is this further consideration, 

 which those interested in Alaska's future 

 might well consider. The royalties aris- 

 ing from these mines (as well as from 

 oil) would for a long time be a source 

 of revenue to the government. To stim- 

 ulate the opening of mines, all royalty 

 might well be waived for a brief period ; 

 later, however, these royalties would be 

 a not inconsiderable addition to the re- 

 sources available for Alaskan develop- 

 ment, for I would think it the wisest 

 policy to give to this new land the full 

 return from her properties to be used in 

 her improvement, at least for many years. 



WESTERN COAL 



There are many isolated places in 

 Alaska where small mines may be opened 

 to supply a local and small need. A 

 license to mine a small acreage without 

 any charge whatever on the part of the 

 government would meet this need. 



It might be well at this point to 

 consider the coal land situation in the 

 Western States. For the policy I have 

 suggested as advisable to apply in Alaska 

 I think the sensible policy to adopt 

 throughout the rest of the country. We 

 have tried two experiments in the United 

 States as to coal lands. We allowed our 

 coal lands to slip from us under the old 

 land-:s-land policy until we came into the 

 presence of a coal monopoly or a series 

 of such monopolies in various parts of 

 the country. If this is questioned we 

 may at least say, with exactness, that 

 we realized that we had been putting 

 priceless assets into the hands of a 

 comparatively few far-sighted men for 

 an inconsiderable consideration. 



Then we tried the other plan of ap- 

 praising such properties on a scientific 

 estimate of contents upon which the land 

 is sold. This is the present plan, and 

 it is really nothing more than a demand 

 for a full but discounted royalty in ad- 

 vance. It has against it, in my opinion, 

 at least two objections. Our coal land 

 is not being used under this plan save 

 under exceptional conditions of local and 

 immediate demand, and the purchaser, 

 when there is one, is speculating on the 

 best guess that an honest geologist can 

 make as to the amount of coal in the 

 ground.* 



It is certainly not for the public interest 

 that our coal deposits shall be opened 

 rapidly and ruthlessly. We may refor- 

 est lands that have been devastated, or 

 feed again into fruitfulness a soil that is 

 starved, but we cannot replace the car- 



*The outstanding withdrawals of public lands 

 valuable for mineral fuels and fertilizers or 

 in connection with the water resources of the 

 public domain now aggregate 66 million acres. 

 The coal-land withdrawals awaiting classifica- 

 tion constitute the larger part of this acreage, 

 being 56,316,410 acres on December 4, 1913, not 

 including the blanket withdrawal of coal lands 

 in Alaska. It is noteworthy that a larger area 

 than this has been restored within the past five 

 years, and nearly 20 million acres have been 

 classified as coal lands and are open to entry 

 at appraised prices. The lands classified and 

 restored by executive order to appropriate 

 entry since March 4 last total 10 million acres, 

 every restoration being based upon careful con- 

 sideration within the Department of the In- 

 terior. About 400,000 acres of mineral lands 

 in the same nine months have been withdrawn. 



