Why We Will Not Invest in Mines.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 31, 5 January 1884, Page 5

Why We Will Not Invest in Mines.

The week has rolled by and the City student who has left the peaceful cyclone slumbering in the West and come East to get knowledge is now prepared .to hear something more about the thingness of the wherewithal. There used to be two Mining Exchanges, but peoplo have bought up all the mining stocks now, and have thorn at home locked up in their trunks. Some day they will uso them to make a dado out of. Nevertheless there is still some mining business left, but it is all in new stocks. New stocks are springing up every day. Some of them are very nicely engraved on beautiful paper, and have allegorical pictures of Faith, Hope, and Charity on them. Faith represents the man who is about to invest in the mine. Charity represents the man who lends the money to pay the seventeenth annual assessment. You do not appear to appear to understand the mining business, but it is easily comprehended. Here is a mining man. He wears a heavy watcbcham and sparkling scarf-pin. His hair is somewhat long, and he has a slouched hat, which makes him look a& if he had just returned from the copper-beds of Arizona. In his pocket he has a map of the county, showing the exact location of the mine and the pitch of the vein, with all its dips, spurs, angles, and sinuosities. J Where is the mine ? On the map, of course. Anyone can see it there. It occupies just two-thirds of an Arizona county, and is painted green to show how full it is of copper. Ask the mining man to show you the map. He spreads it out before you and explains that the vein has been opened for over seven miles, and that 9,000,000 tons of copper ore, yielding 70 per cent, copper, 15 per cent, silver, 5 per cent, gold, and 10 per cent, prospective dividends are on the dumps. That's where you'll be after a while, and then you'll know where it is. Tho value of the mine is estimated at 10,006,000,000 dollars, and the company has been moderately capitalised at 10,000,000 dollars. All the stock was taken at par — ten dollars per share — except about 5,000 shares. The company is now engaged in disposing of tlie.se for tho purpose of putting in a smelter. No ; a smelter doesn't make smelts. It doesn't do anything, because it never gets to the mine. If it did it would just rear and cavort around and make things hum. Well, now, in order to put in this smelter the company must soil that stock at a sacrifice, and this kind mining man, appreciating the fact that you are a stranger and he ought to take you in, is going to sell you some at GO dollars 50 cents per share. The market price is now 5 dollars. You buy it, of course. The next day the market price is 7 dollars 50 cents. The kind mining man says you must not bo frightened. Hold on, it will go up again. It goes down to 5 dollars, to 4 dollars, to 3 dollars, to 1 dollar 75 cents, and then you get frightened and sell out. Then the kind mining man comes to you and asks you how you could be so foolish. You say that you heard that the mine was no good. Then he ."hows you a letter from the superintendent. You at once make up your mind that you have been a fool and buy some more stock at 0 dollars 50 cents a share. Do y«»u keep that stock '{ Oh, no ; you do not keep that stock. The price goes down, and you sell out again. Keep it up! Some day you will find that they are running the mine on the profits thoy make out of you. Running tho mine V Oh, ye.s ; the mine if. still on that map, and you are paying for the luncheons and dinners and breakfasts and rooms of the kind mining man. It is very pleasant to support a mining man. You cannot imagine how nice it is to be a foundling asylum for broken-down mining men. Thoy like it, too. — " Times," New York.