Rocks in the road to fortune; or, The unsound side of mining - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...to pay those rates." "But you have continued in accepting forty per cent. commission and also some bonus stock?" "Yes, I have continued to accept it because in the beginning I got in wrong, and I cannot change the system. I know of men other than myself in this business who realize that it is wrong. But, as I have said, we cannot help ourselves. The system has been started wrong, and I will explain why it has been so started. In the first place, the heavy commissions paid us have created an expensive system of flotation. The local agents in the smaller cities look upon us as grafters. They have an idea "That's natural. Each day the people are becoming more aware of the fact that fhere is no stability in the system of mine promotion by sensational promises and expensive publicity, that there are no results, that it is nothing but a system of promise and generality, that it is not mining. It is to the credit of the public that they have slowly commenced to realize that the way you raise money is unsound, and that forty per cent is a load that they do not themselves wish to carry, because they are carrying the load when the burden falls on the property in which they invest. Now, such being the case, why don't you take up the sound side of mine promotion, insist upon the absolute evidence of values, and turn down all of these propositions that offer you forty or fifty per cent commissions?" "But I am not a miner. I am not able by experience to discern whether these men are telling me the truth. I have my heavy expenses here. They offer these commissions and I naturally take them." "Do you ever consider the case? Do you know that in the history of mining there have never been four commercial mines made by that system?...