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Show 4 INTER-MOUNTAI- MINING REVIEW. N wish our sisters to find husbands. To which the Mining and Scientific Press replies as follows : Such a palpable, bald slander, if published in this country, where the character of the gold miner is so well known, would not be taken seriously. But, published in one of the most reputable of the great English dailies, it may do considerable harm. The gold miner of the Pacific coast of has many of the characteristics that won for the men of 49 the respect of all who understand them. This is especially true of the miners in the newer districts. Probably the fact that the miner does his drinking and gambling openly, and not secretly, will impress the casual visitor wrongly. The honest miner is in the habit of doing all things openly and allowing the world to judge him by all he does, rather than trying to show only his best side. to-da- y A SECRETARY OF MINES. . The Miners Association of California, recently in session, unanimously passed a resolution urging the creation by the Government of a Department of Mines, and that the rank of the presiding officer'be that of a member of the Cabinet. That a nation in which the mining industry has attained the importance that it has reached in the United States has failed to create a minister of mines, is a reproach, as it simply exhibits indifference on the part of those most interested. The Mining Association of the Northwest took the question up in their recent convention, and made the recommendation. The California miners followed ; the Southern Oregan Miners Association in convention at Grants Pass last week did the same, and the movement to create the cabinet office of Secretary of Mines has been agitated and indorsed in every mining state in the west,' except Utah, and now its our turn. Utah has some magnificent mines with dividend records aggregating million dollars. She has some of the ablest and most forty-fiv- e eminent mine managers, engineers, metallurgists, chemists and geologists on the coast, but for some reason these highly educated men have refrained from organizing themselves into a body as in other states. The result is now, that, while the mining men of Utah are as much interested in the creation of the proposed new cabinet office as any others, any endorsement they may give the movement will be unofficial, and will, of course, lose weight and be more or less impotent. There is just now a particular reason why the mining men of the State should organize. In a short time the second State legislature meets, and it is a condition as widely known as it is deplored that we have no State mining laws. This legislature may be able to frame suitable laws, as it has' many members who are fairly well acquainted with some of the needs, but the efforts of the legislature could be materially assisted by the consensus of opinion of the mining men if the latter were associated. The matter, too, is one in which they are so deeply interested that it will be difficult to account for their further indifference. coal regions. Mr. Oshima, the head of the commission, in an in. terview in California, said : We want to put our country where it properly belongs in the van as a manufacturing nation. We will need a vast amount of steel, and do not want to depend on any other country for it. The last paragraph of Mr. Oshimas utterances shows to just what point the Japanese have advanced, and also the point which that advancement has stopped. His country will want steel a vast amount of it, to use in the development of its native re- sources, and. to carry on the commerce that will be the fruit of that development. With all his ingenuity the Jap failed to make any material advancement in developing these resources until the white races pointed out their worth and taught him how to use them. But now ho proposes to corner it all. No reciprocity for for his him, for he does not want to depend on any other-natiosteel. The Japanese are rapidly placing themselves in the first rank of producers of mannfactured material ; of the material that makes the bulk of commerce in more advanced nations, and in that position Japan is even now a competitor of other manufacturing countries. But while they have absorbed our methods in material advancement, they have not acquired our habits of living, and the wages paid their workmen are' practically the same as were paid before the nation commenced to be civilized. The result is that they are not competitors only, but they are competitors that it will be impossible to compete with. Any line of manufactures that they take up will find a place in the worlds markets at prices h of that which they can be produced in white about j I 1 j 1 j j j I I one-tent- nations, for the wages the Japanese pay are less than what is paid, by any other nation for the same grades of labor. This new venture which will enable the Japanese to produce all their own iron and steel will result in their producing a surplus ; then they will be in a position to land steel on our shores at a figure so alluring that no measure looking to a prohibitory tariff will be considered. The results will be that grass will grow in the streets of Homestead. The problem of the competition of Asiatic labor is one that should be awakening the Statesmen of not only America, but of all the civilized nations. one-tent- h NATURAL GAS. s Those who are interested in the natural gas wells at F armington, from which this city receives its supply of gas for light and heat, and those who are not pecuniarily interested but have taken the pains to investigate the condition of the wells since the Electric Light company announced that the wells had failed, denounce the statement as untrue. The trouble arose over the failure, on the to day and night of November 6th, of the Electric Light company furnish gas in Salt Lake City, they stating as an excuse that the not supply from the wells had been exhausted. The wells people only entered a denial to this statement, but asserted that their hours in question, the meters showed that during the twenty-fou- r wells had delivered nearly double the usual quantity of gas, or over 400, ocx) cubic feet. They stated that the loss occurred thi ough leaks in the Electric Light companys pipe line, and that the company was well aware that the leaks existed, but had taken nc steps to repair them. Later the wells people took a committee or repIRON INDUSTRY IN JAPAN. utable citizens over the line and proved to them, conclusively, that A commission of Japanese experts were in Salt Lake the present the gas was escaping before it reached the city. The same com-to mittee also inspected the wells and found them in a condi: ;on week, and are out for a tour of the United States and Europe with supply more gas than Salt Lake will need when its populn ionis the purpose of finding out all they can about iron and steel manu- doubled. g facturing, with a view to the putting up of large As an offset to these statements of facts the Electric Light comand plants in Japan to supply the large needs that country will have for pany depends, in its efforts to discredit the natural gas supp'-s iron and steel in changing its industrial energies to meet modern re- to substitute artificial gas at four times the cost, on its bald their fron: that the failed. wells hare Somehow, probably and home fit to at its for with other quirements people competing is n t ac concern this of record of the six the say-s- o past years, nations for foreign trade. as truth ; indeed they are said to be expert falsifier-loncepted The inital plant now in contemplation will have a capacity of to ho practice, and their efforts in this respect are freely said 100,000 tons per year of steel, and will be built in the Japanese another attempt to job the Salt Lake public. : . ; rs ) j j 5 : j j iron-makin- :isser-tion- j |