railroads and reduction plants, mining would have been confined to the richer ores near the surface, and would probably have been abandoned when these were exhausted; for it has been handicapped during the entire period by the abnormal figures at which the miners' unions have been able to keep the rate of wages, while they have been reduced in almost every other branch of industry.
That the industry as a whole has progressed in spite of a continuous fall in the value of the product has been mainly due to the fact that the larger reduction works, under the spur of the necessity of rendering the large capital invested in their plants productive, have displayed ingenuity and economy in improving their processes and in reducing the cost of fuel and other materials, so as to leave them still a margin of profit. The smaller profit is offset in the case of the larger smelters by the greater number of tons treated, and also by the utilization of other products besides the precious metals, such as lead and copper. As long, therefore, as these larger smelters can obtain even a very small profit, silver mining will be continued in the larger mines and in those whose ore is exceptionally high grade, while the smaller and less favorably situated mines will gradually be abandoned. It is to be assumed, moreover, that self-interest will induce the miners to consent to a reduction in wages when it becomes a question of that or nothing, and thus a still longer lease of life will be given to some established mines iu the face of a continuous reduction in the price of silver; but when this price shall have fallen so far, without a counterbalancing rise in the price of lead and copper, that the larger smelting works are obliged to close, silver mining will be abandoned throughout the greater part of the western region. This exigency is not, however, likely to occur while the price fluctuates, as it has done during the past year, between 70 and 80 cents per ounce.
Assuming that silver continues at about these prices, it is probable that the greater part of the silver product of the country will come from Colorado, Montana, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Hew Mexico, and Arizona, in the order named, and will gradually be reduced to between thirty and forty millions annually.
The annual gold product, on the other hand, is likely to see a steady increase to $40,000,000, and perhaps beyond, and its principal producers will be the following States and Territories, also in the order named: California, Colorado, Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Alaska, Arizona, with a great deal of uncertainty as to the relative rank of the smaller producers.
An industry is of value to the country at large in proportion to its permanence and absence from violent fluctuations, and the silver mining industry has been in this sense of great value. The large amount of capital invested in extensive plants and tributary railroads has given profitable employment to great numbers of people, and assured greater permanence than the many small gold mines and gold-reducing plants.
