Show BON AI CICAMRS L fTURNS THE CONDITIONS IN CAUFOH ITIA ARE MUCK IMPROVED The Future of the Ontario and Daly Properties Cannotbe Worked Unless Un-less There is An Advance in Silver Sil-ver c Hon R C Chambers returned yesterday yester-day from an extended trip In California When seen by a Herald reporter fast night he roiU that the Ontario mills must necessarily neces-sarily close down as the price of sliver did not Justlfiy them In running the mines Speaking of California Mr Chambers said that conditions had greatly improved since his last vlst there Farmers were recolving much more tljan last year for their scream and fruits owing to toe fact that many thousands of acres of the wine producing land had been used for other purposes The wheat crop hul been good I In California and owing to the shortage I In the crops of Europe Asia and Aus i r na gtt tralia a better price had been obtained I for wheat than for severE years past These conditions had resulted In the lifting lift-ing of many mortgages which the producers pro-ducers hod despaired of raisins The onr ge crop also primed to be rood Is It true that you went to San Francisco Fran-cisco for the purpose of consulting with Ole board of directors of the Ontario company com-pany TTOS asked No that is not the fact Still I talked with Mr Lloyd Tevis as well as other < members of the company and explained to them the general condition of the mines and tho future prospects It was not a stock holders meeting I as some suppose J ffcs mee That does not take mce until next De comber What conclusion did you come to as to the working of the mine this winter I think we will operate a small force of men on the Ontario indefinitely The idea Is not to do any prospecting but to takeout take-out some of the base ore1 which we think will enable us to beep the mine alive A force can bo raised at are time when theIr is danger of the timber roving In Notwithstanding this tha mill must of necessity close down We cannot produce pro-duce bullion tor less than 75 cents an ounce with any prOfit to the company Some Mine ago 1 made a statement to Senator Stewart In which It was shown that tho cost of the production of An ounce of silver was 687 cents with the mine running in good form This of course does not represent the great amount of money invested In machinery or equipment or the large amount of money expended In the driving of the tunnel saving the cost of pumping that the ores mght be more ecqnomicnlly mar hated and extracted The Ontario and Daly are both quite willing to resume work but thin must be done you know with a small profit to themt elveS Th5 condition In which the shutting down of Tho mines has left many families at the Park Is deplorable to us Young men can go out for themselves but many of tiio older ones who have families have been forced to seek employment in ether camps For many months both the Ontario and Daly were operated at a loss and the pay rolls were mt by drawog money from the surplus in the treasury an action which many of the stock holders objected to for the reason that It pro vented them from drawing expected dividends divi-dends TIll was done In the hope that the price of silver would rise but as it cUd not the closing of the mines became inevitable in-evitable Hon Richard Mackintosh returned with I jlr Chambers |