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Show GOLD MINING AND WlVR PRICES ' . - ; The world is threatened with a gold scarcity and the reason . ' -' therefore is pointed out by Herman Jennings, of the United , ' ; States bureau of mines. He cites the following percentages of increase: Labor, 20; steel, from 40 to 280; manganese steel, 130; Explosives and machinery, 75; lumber, 125. What has been the effect? A reduction in the gold product ' of this country from 101,035,700 in 1915 to $83,052,500 for last year. -The world's production naturally has been falling to a greater extent than in a country that up. to. the close of 1917 was hardly touched by the world war. - ' - ;r If , it takes ' 50 per cent more or even higher costs, to take out a ton of gold ore than it did four years back, and the miners finds that in addition governmental taxes are very much higher, he is liable to slow up in production and leave the ore in the mine. That, as a matter of fact, is what is being done in all the pro-' pro-' ducing districts in the west. ' - ; ' -. The federal expert believes that governmental action is i required to protect the nation's gold supply. One of his sugges- tions seems reasonable, that all excess profit taxes on gold min-! min-! ' ing should be eliminated. He maintains that "should the obtain-rnent obtain-rnent of new gold cease while draft on the old coins are vastly ' increased, the whole storage battery of gold energy may so get out of adjustment as not to do useful work, and gold would become be-come demonetized and the accumulated labor of centuries past, locked up in gold coins, become inert and valueless. Should al! gold mining stop or radically diminish this would be the result." |