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Show EXPERT SAYS GOLD MINGDESlBLEj " i Cost of Production Displays j Increase Which Threat- j ens Profits. The communication of J. Parke Chan-ning Chan-ning in the Journal of December S on the subject, "Is Gold Mining Necessary During the War?" 1ms excited a good deal of discussion. Mr. Channing took the position that we do not need any more gold, and therefore the continued operation of old mines simply uses labor nnd material that ought to be employed for more essential things. Anyhow, he argues that congress should frown upon the movement to assist gold mining in the present juncture by abating war taxes in so far as the gold mines are concerned. We do not hold with. Mr. Channing. If it had not been for the great gold reserves of Great Britain and the United States, "we fear that the Huns would already have been overrunning our shores. The British have recognized the importance of maintaining their financial ; ba.sie, and have done everything possible ; to stimulate the gold production of the Witwatersrand. Otherwise the statements 1 of the Bank of England would look very i different today. Even now the banket s ' of both Great Britain and the United States are distinctly averse to releasing any of their -gold. The director of the mint has just stated officially that It is desired to encourage the production of both silver and gold. The production of silver may be stimu- la ted by letting the price rise further, but the price for gold does not rise. On the contrary, as the price of other commodities rise, the value of gold depreciates, 1. e., it will "buy leas of other t lungs. For this reason gold mining Is now on the wane. The cost of production has so Increased that in many cases inability to operate any longer at a profit is immediately im-mediately threatened. The more favorably favor-ably situated concerns are confronted by heavy war taxes. They have not enjoyed en-joyed any war profits. On the contrary, they have suffered war losses. It is certain cer-tain that if maintenance of gold production produc-tion be desired, something must be done to ameliorate the conditions under which gold producers are operating. Engineering Engineer-ing & Mining Journal |