Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/327

Rh surface, and the prices are fixed so that the earnings will only be a reasonable profit upon the amount paid and the investment necessary. But, of course, this is more or less guesswork, and the government parts with the ownership of the coal in the ground absolutely.

Authorities of the Geological Survey estimate that in the United States to-day there is a supply of about 3,000 billions of tons of coal, and that of this, 1,000 billions are in the public domain. Of course, the other 2,000 billions are within private ownership, and under no more control as to the use or the prices at which the coal may be sold than any other private property. If the government leases the coal lands and acts as any landlord would, and imposes conditions in its leases like those which are now imposed by the owners in fee of coal mines in the various coal regions of the east, then it would retain over the disposition of the coal deposits a choice as to the assignee of the lease, a power of resuming possession at the end of the term of the lease, or of readjusting terms at fixed periods of the lease, which might easily be framed to enable it to exercise a limited but effective control in the disposition and sale of the coal to the public.

It has been urged that the leasing system has never been adopted in this country, and that its adoption would largely interfere with the investment of capital and the proper development and opening up of the coal resources. I venture to differ entirely from this view. My investigations show that many owners of mining property of this country do not mine it themselves, and do not invest their money in the plants necessary for the mining, but they lease their properties for a term of years varying from twenty to thirty and forty years, under conditions requiring the erection of a proper plant and the investment of a certain amount of money in the development of the mines, and fixing a rental and a royalty, sometimes an absolute figure and sometimes one proportioned to the market value of the coal. Under this latter method the owner of the mine shares in the prosperity of his lessees when coal is high and the profits good, and also shares to some extent in their disappointment when the price of coal falls.

I have looked with some care into a report made at the instance of President Roosevelt upon the disposition of coal lands in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. These are peculiarly mining countries, and their experience ought to be most valuable. In all these countries the method for the disposition and opening of coal mines originally owned by the government is by granting leasehold, and not by granting an absolute title. The terms of the leases run all the way from twenty to fifty years, while the amount of land which may be leased to any individual there is from 320 acres to 2,000 acres. It appears that a full examination was made, and the opinions of all the leading experts on the subject were solicited and given, and that with one accord they