New York Paper - Uniform Mining Law for North America (with Discussion)

AS this is the age of reform, a uniform mining law for North America is a moot subject for discussion at this meeting of the Institute. The question is one of peculiarly technical and, in many respects, local character. We all appreciate the value of the metal-producing industries and recognize the necessity and importance of a well-considered and evenly balanced mining law as a branch of our jurisprudence either for the Provinces or the Dominion as a whole. Mining has taken its place as a forempst industry and legislation that seeks to control and govern it is the concern of not only the active miner but the citizens of the state. A law that, through its charitable measures brings into being the prospector, the pathfinder and superstructure of all mining activity and industry! protects his interests, safeguards invested capital, and encourages and enforces development, possesses at least the salient requirements of a businesslike Act. The manner of doing so is, I think, one of local and internal concern. May I be permitted to say without presumption that of the five mining codes, or Acts, that we have in the Dominion of Canada born and bred within the Provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, some of them could be materially improved. In many respects they do not measure up to the times; they were no -doubt creations of merit at the date of their .birth but they have not been clothed in seasonable raiment as the years passed by. It is a stern fundamental principle that all natural resources are the inalienable property of the crown. If it is mineral land, then it follows for the protection of the state and the direct advancement of the occupant that the land should be developed as such. The method or machincry by which this must be accomplished is a matter of detail, not of principle. If the right to possession as a licensee depends on discovery, it is not inconsistent with the duty the crown owes to the state that a grant in fee should pass to the discoverer if there is imposed, after patent issues, a requirement of continuous work or the alternative of an acreage tax sufficiently burdensome to make it unprofitable that the land should be held in an undeveloped state. If this requirement is recognized, the mental distinction between a grant and lease ceases to exist. A