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Show Declares Gold Mining Needs Attention Without Dallying Editor of Mining- Congress. Journal Discusses Question of Yellow Metal Problem v Frankly. shall not undertake to answer this question, ques-tion, but we can point out one way by which it cannot be done. It cannot be done if wo allow the source of supply of gold, the measure of our value and the basis of our credit, to be cut off by damming dam-ming the intake and opening wide the outlet of our supply reservoir. It cannot be done by decreasing the deposits and increasing the payment from our reserve bank, it cannot be done by "weakening the foundation while enormously increasing increas-ing the structure of credit which that foundation supports. The American Bankers' association at its recent convention conven-tion very wisely adopted a resolution "respectfully requesting and urging upon tire government of the United States the desirability of maintaining the production of gold to at least its prewar volume." ' Our effort to maintain the gold mining industry is imperative if we are to maintain main-tain or partially maintain our prewar production. Mines are now being closed which will require enormous expense and years of time to reopen. Mining timbers in an un ventilated mine quickly decay, and the reopening requires much of time and expense as well as great risk to the workers so employed. The immediate and pressing problem is for prompt efforts to prevent the closing down of mines which, once closed, cannot j be opened except at acost so great as ! to make operation absolutely unprofitable, even though gold might become worth many times its coinage value. The pressure of high prices has gradually grad-ually borne down the gold mining industry indus-try to a point where immediate aid is necessary to save it from extinction. Operators of low-grade gold-mines are not greatly concerned with the war revenue reve-nue taxation bill, says the Mining Congress Con-gress Journal's leading editorial. Their concern is of means by which their operations op-erations can be brought into the class of excess profits earners. Many people have bewailed the fact that gold mines have passed into private qwnership. The ancient rule that all precious metals belonged be-longed to the crown embodies the principle princi-ple which this school of thought has approved. ap-proved. If these conditions now prevailed, pre-vailed, can there he any doubt that the Government should push gold production lo the limit? And yet by this course newly produced gold would undoubtedly cost double its coinage value. We submit sub-mit that even that extraordinary cost had better bo paid by the government as applied ap-plied to the cost of 5,000,000 ounces of newly produced gold, representing the country's highest annual production, than to have the three thousand million dollars dol-lars oT our gold reserve go to a premium, which means that the purchasing value of the more than twenty thousand million dollars of credit and credit money which the gold reserves support shall be depreciated depre-ciated in purchasing value. Governor yarding of the federal reserve re-serve system gave timely warning to the recent Chicago convention of the American Amer-ican Bankers' association when he said. "Yours to see that the purchasing power of this money is not impaired.'' These words should be taken seriously, not alone by bankers, but by the American people. And how shall it. be done? We |