In a letter recently published in the Spectator, Mr. J. Barr Robertson, who took much interest in silver mines and mine-owners after he left Shanghai some years ago, combats the Spectator's conclusion that silver could easily be produced at 2s, an ounee—that is, over £3,580 a ton—if copper does not cost over £50 a ton. 'I'he conclusion was too absurd to need combating: as Mr. Robertson asks: "On the other hand, why should gold be worth nearly £140,000 a ton?" and he explains that "these metals are distributed over the world in very unequal proportions, and the above prices are an index of the relative cost at which the quantity of each metal in demand can be obtained." He goes on to say that probably not one-tenth, or one-twentieth of the present supply of silver could be produced at 2s, an ounce, and he quotes }the following from a special Report made on the subject by the Committee on Mines and Mining of the U.S. Senate "But 99 per cent. of all the supposed discoveries and locations of mining claims upon which Labour and money have been expended have been utter failures, and produce nothing. If it be said that the vast outlays for exploring mines, prospecting and developing them sufficiently to ascertain if they are valuable, should not be taken into account in the cost of mining, it may be answered that whenever prospecting }and exploring ceases, the end of silver-[mining must speedily come. The ordinary life of a silver-mive in the United States is from three to ten years. Very few have paid dividends for a longer period.... The great bon-onzas are exhausted much more rapidly than new mines which will pay for {working are found. ''I'here is no dividend-paying mine in the state of Nevada, which State has been the greatest. producer of silver. he product of silver in Idaho has fallen off 50 per cent. in the last year..., Buta lange increase
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.