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Show 10 INTKli-MOUNTAI- than a high protective tariff. The Speculative Gamble. As to the effect upon wages, we have had this experience: When we first commenced work, four years ago, we had no difficulty in securing laborers. For unskilled labor we employed Yaqui Indians at 75 cents per day, and paid the Indian boss $3. We paid $5 for car- penters and $G for machinists, in Mexican money. Since that time the condition of laborers has been gradually improving. Many new industries have been started, the demand for labor has increased and wages have advanced. We are now paying the Indians $1.25, Indian boas $4, assistant boss $2, carpenter $7, qnd machinists $S. During the last year or so it has been almost impossible for us and other mining companies to secure the laborers we need, and we are actually forced to employ a man to hunt them up. We have not had a full force for a year, STEP-DOW- N because it has been impossible to get the men. It should be borne in mind that one good American workman is worth three or four natives, and unskilled wages are higher in Mexico, based upon the efficiency of the laborers. than in the United States. Skilled laborers receive as good, or better wages than in the United States, computed in gold, and while the demand for labor has been increasing and wages have been advancing, the purchasing power of the money in which wages are paid has not diminished, except as applied to some few imported goods. The MINING 11EV1EW N Consolidated Gold Fields company of South Africa has come to America for another consulting engineer, to succeed John Hays Hammond. Harry M. Welsh of San Francisco has been appointed, at a salary of $15,000 per year, which is $45,000 less than Hammond was reported to have received. being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication. So sang Byron, and now to parallel this defense of one form of excitement, it has been ruled that a mans indulgence in what have been called "speculative gamules, is recognizable by law. Gambling in shares lias often been deprecated by the unco guid, even the moment after paying a life insurance premium, which is in it- self a mere taking of the odds offered by the insuring company that you wont die within the next twelve months; but the practice of buying for a rise and selling for a fall has always been regarded as a transaction of doubtful legality. So strongly has this view been held that a Montreal clerk named Ostingy, whose name should certainly have been spelt without its initial O, after getting several thou- "Man TRANSFORMERS was a legitimate commercial transaction, and one of every day occurenc to buy a commodity in the expectatb n that it would rise in value, and wi h the intention of realizing a profit by i.g The legal aspect of the ca: e was the same whatever be the nature of the commodity, whether it be a cargo of wheat or the shares of a joint stock company. Nor, 'again, did sui-purchases and sales become gaming contracts because the person purchasing was not possessed of the money inquired to pay for his purchases, but obtained the requisite funds in a large measure by means of advances on the security of the stocks or goods he had urchased. That was also an everyday commercial transaction. After other observations, the Lord Chancellor said their Lordships thought the judgments of the courts below ought to be reversed, with costs. But in regard to the costs of the appeal they re-sal- e. h j ' j ' ! 1 Big Cottonwood Power Company. sar.d dolars in arrears with his broker, one Forget who will not readily Forget his slippery client refused to pay, alleging that as the broker knew he bought that which was never to be delivered, and so made the affair one of speculation, not of investment, he had no legal claim. The broker sued, and the court upheld the clerks view of the case, declaring the deal to be a gamble, and therefore illegal. The broker, however, caried it to appeal before the Privy Council, which has reversed the Canadian decision and decided in favor of the appellant. The Lord Chancellor, considered that as Forget was allowed to prosecute it, notwithstanding the small amount at stake, upon the ground that it involved a question of wide general interest, he (Foryet) should bear the costs of the appeal on both sides. Canadian Mining Revi- w. - A Washington dispatch states l";at an appeal has been made to the Tr Department in behalf of 1000 di prospectors in Alaska, who ire unable to pay their passage home, nd will perish unless they are broi ;ht back by the Bering sea patrol t et. in giving judgment, declared that it Nevertheless, there will be just as did not matter whether the broker great a stampede of impecunious n knewr that Ostingys object wTas specuderfeet next spring. lation and not investment. Such con"Walter Greer Campbell, the pron ter tracts were sometimes spoken of as of gambling on the stock exchange, but for whom Cheyenne raised a bom uM it certainly did not follow that the $1500 in the expectation that he w transaction involved any gaming con- erect an electrical smelter at that ty, tract. A contract could not properly is said to be Wanted by the Chicag I0 be so described because it was entered lice on a charge of swindling. B Js" into in furtherance of a speculation. It hunters often come to grief. is-u- ry ti-tu- te |