| OCR Text |
Show BUSINESS EAST AND WEST. By indirection the crashing of stocks in the East affects such enterprises in the West as are still depending upon eastern money with which to get their works in perfect running order, but that is all and it is, we think, only temporary. The big operators are playing against each other even as business men sometimes sit down for an all night game of poker. We do not believe that anything like a panic will be precipitated this year for there are good prospects for the crops cotton, Qorn and wheat, the foreign demand continues con-tinues strong; every month's balance is in favor of the United States; the reinforcement of the money volume from the mines is continuous and there is more money in the eastern states than any country ever before possessed. The state of business in the east is of a kind which points to a final crash and slow readjustment by and by, but not this year. But the present situation shows one on how much better basis the business of the West Is than in the East. The real anchor of the whole West from the Pacific to the Dakotas, from the British Columbia border to the borders of Old Mexico, is the mines. Everything else except ex-cept the wheat and rare fruit lands of California, the fish, wheat and lumber of the northwest, depends de-pends upon the mines. They never fail. Their products are steadily increasing; they give employment em-ployment to hosts of skilled laborers, thousands of teams; hundreds of machine shops, and the supplies needed for men and teams are above estimation. Slowly the truth is forcing its way into the minds of men that the desert with forbidding for-bidding face, is like the face of the rich old man to his relatives. It may be harsh and stern to look upon but the old man carries the check book for all the family. We have heard a good deal of late about a rOad being pushed from this city to a west-shore connection, of another road stretching its way from Denver to a terminal here, and there are doubters whoask how roads can pay through such a country. Suppose it were all a rjeli agricultural country. The farmer on ICO acres of land would work all his boys, his hired ui men, he would raise the regular quota of farm If products, oats, corn, wheat, vegetables, etc., but ' how much freight would he supply to the rail- j, road? . . ;,! I r' He would depend probably upon one crop ' Uj for his yearly profits. It might be wheat and ho J I might be able to raise forty acres. If it was a jf good year, after deducting for the seed for next year, his own consumption, chicken feed, etc., he might have 800 bushels to ship away. But If a man m .had a little gold mine in the desert and wantod f a steam hoist and a ten-stamp mill, his machinery would weigh six times as much as the farmer's wheat crop. If he had a little mine of base ore t and could ship only ten tons per day, in the year his shipments would be equal to that of 125 ! farms, or to more than all the shipments from thirty quare miles of agricultural land. Moreover, the supplies needed at the mine would supply to the road many times more velght in freights than a dozen farmers could, for mines are helpless ' J things both ways. They demand much labor, Hi much machinery, much fuel, and when their pro- n duct is obtained it has to be carried to market. When mines, as in the desert, are distributed ? where there aro rich agricultural valleys adjacent, adja-cent, then the conditions are ideal, all classes prosper. This makes conditions serene in the West whatever apprehensions prevail In the East, whatsoever losses are suffered. The West is a safer region to work in than the East, while ,t in point of comfort from climatic conditions, there is no comparison. The man who is doing reason ably well in the west should every day hug him- u self because of his good luck. |