| Show A secondhand SECOND HAND SHAFT the average farmer would make a poor banker the average banker would not prove much of a success in cultivating the soil the average miner would soon wreck a mercantile business and the public generally would not meet with much success in mining operations every business occupation requires a peculiar talent a certain knowledge and a great deal of experience to sustain it on a paying basis and none more so than mining for mining after all is a business proposition and must be conducted as such if success is to crown the efforts of those who pursue this fascinating industry and yet sad to relate more rank ignorance is displayed by many who follow mining as a business than is to be found in almost any other industrial pursuit and the result of this lack of knowledge of experience is clearly shown in the disastrous failures recorded in mining affairs throughout this intermountain region we say in this intermountain region tor for the reason that it is in this section that the majority of producing and paying mines are to be found but the blame for these failures does not apply to the real mining men of the west but to the ignorance and incompetency of eastern investors who control certain enterprises in this western country for instance the directorate of many mining companies is composed of eastern men who have not the least real conception of mining affairs the president of a company may be a first class eastern business man but he has but a very vague idea of how a mine should be developed and equipped his superintendent may be a man of exceptionable ability and experience one who had he but his way and ample funds at his command would soon prove to the satisfaction of all the real value of the property under his bis management and direction generally however he is handi capped coped by the eastern management which quibbles at his requests ignores his recommendations ions and falls fails utterly at the critical point when intelligent and concerted action would soon place the property of the company upon a producing and paying basis and all because the president and his board of directors know nothing at all about mining and because they are ignorant of the requirements necessary in the operation of a mining proposition many eastern men interested in mining affairs have ideas about mining that would be ace funny but for the fact that their application are so disastrous to their interests their intentions are good but their judgment is faulty for instance a story is going the rounds of the press about a mine superintendent who cabled his english company that the shaft had caved in and that a new one would have to be made the english president of the company cabled back cant you buy a secondhand second hand shaft this is equal to the kansas method of cutting a dry well in sections and selling them to settlers for postholes pest post holes this is an old gag but it is as good as the buying of a secondhand second hand band shaft and illustrates and corroborates the statement so often made regarding the ignorance of eastern capitalists regarding mining affairs in the caso case of the secondhand second hand shaft the affair Is laughable and not at all serious but supposing that an emergency of great importance was at stake a question involved where life or fortune trembled in the balance then such ignorance as that displayed by the english mine president would have been disastrous to the best interests of the company As a matter of fact too many secondhand shaft men have the management of mining affairs too many such men have the handling of company money and too many of them are clamoring for dividends and prof profits its before work has hardly commenced in mine development and operation in mine and mill equipment the moral is that none but men of experience peri ence in mining should be in trusted with the affairs of a mining company and that all other methods of mine management and operation are hazardous and dangerous to the investing public |
