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Show ENCOURAGE THE MINING INDUSTRY MINING and smelting are at the top of the list of the West's great industries. in-dustries. In addition, oil production comes under the head of mineral development. devel-opment. Artificial price fixing has a tendency to restrict production unless the price established is sufficient to encourage the small producer. Returns received from twenty-one copper producers in Arizona, each out-putting out-putting less than 1,000,000 pounds of copper a month, show that their total production would have been reduced by lowering of the metal price below 23io cents a total of 1,280,000 pounds a month. The twenty-one small operators operat-ors on whose figures the above estimates esti-mates are based are employing a total of 1,876 men on a 23Vo-cent market. On a 26-cent market they would be able to get into their lower grade ores sufficiently suffi-ciently to employ 2,616 men. In passing state and national legislation legisla-tion affecting these industries, the fact must not be lost sight of that the continued con-tinued prosperity of the West depends in a large measure on the steady operation opera-tion of its mines. It is easy to kill the goose that lays the golden egg for both the laborer and the investor, with high taxes and too much regulation, and at this time it would be a national calamity calam-ity to advocate policies which would reduce metal and oil production. 0 |