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Price One Penny.
T4O/
POLITICS for the PEOPLE.—No. I.
MINING RENTS
— AND —
ROYALTIES.
By J. MORRISON
DAVIDSON,
BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
Author of “Eminent Radicals,” “The New Book of Kings," “Book of
Lords,” “ Useless, Dangerous,
and
Ought
to be
I
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�MINING RENTS AND ROYALTIES.
F there be one thing in this world more astonishing
than that individuals should claim private property
in the surface of this planet, and have their claims
allowed by the Legislature of a free country, it
assuredly is that they should pretend to have a right
to the contents of its interior. A coal-hewer descends
into the bowels of the cold earth, and with infinite
toil and danger raises a ton of fuel for tenpence or
even eightpence. Another man, calling himself a
landlord, who is meanwhile, perchance, gambling at
Monaco or bear-hunting in the Rocky Mountains,
successfully exacts a toll of thirteen or fourteen pence
per ton on the entire output of a mine, or, it may be,
a score of mines ! Could there be a more startlinganomaly ? “ O Lord what fools these mortals be ! ”
is all the comment that any rational being can, in the
circumstances, make.
I
�4
Yet this was the kernel of the case which the
influential deputation of Members of Parliament, who,
in April, 1886, brought the question of mining royal
ties before the Liberal Home Secretary, had to sub
mit. True, Mr. Childers’ mind was a taint la 1 asa
as regards mining royalties, and not one of the
deputation ventured to suggest their nationalisation
—the only true remedy for the serious evils com
plained of. Still much good was effected by the
bare recital of the atrocious exactions which the land
lords habitually make both on mine lessees and
miners.
Mr. Stephen Mason, representing one of the
divisions of Lanarkshire, where trade depression is
peculiarly severe, instanced the case of a ducal high
wayman who preys on the mining industry of the
district to the extent of ^114,000 per annum. His
method of blackmail is this :—He benignly grants
leases for twenty-one years at fixed “ rents,” varying
from Z500 to ,£5,000. These are payable whether
the mine is worked or not. If worked, the moment
a certain output is attained “ royalties ” come into
play. These vary from çd. to is. 6d. per ton. No
mediaeval Rhine robber ever devised a more effectual
system of brigandage. Indeed, the landlord is the
undisputed master of the situation, and it is a marvel
that he has not succeeded long ere now in completely
�5
destroying the industrial supremacy of the country.
Mr. Mason told of an instance where a company
spent ^50,000 to get at a seam of coal.
They
reached it, but found that rent and royalty would
together absorb every penny of profit.
The land
lord would, nevertheless, have his entire pound of
flesh. Consequently the machinery has been stand
ing idle for four years !
But it is when leases come to be renewed that the
landlords’ harvest is really ripe.
Mr. Conybeare,
who represents a mining division of Cornwall,
revealed a state of things in his neighbourhood of a
singularly aggravated kind. When the lease of the
Dolcoath mine was renewed a fine of ,£2 5,000 was
exacted, The Duke of Bedford, in the case of the
Devon Great Consols Mine, levied a £20,000 fine.
As for the unfortunate lessees they might like it or
lump it. If they lumped it their engine-houses and
all their improvements went to the landlord without
compensation.
The landlord, moreover, on the
ground-rent monopoly principle, charged from five to
ten times agricultural value for the surface.
As to the amount ofannual tribute paid by the nation
on its mineral wealth to the landlords, no exact figures
can be given. But it is has been estimated that in the
year 1883 they pocketed on coal and iron ore alone
the vast sum of eight millions sterling. This enor
�mous drain in the face of falling and stagnant mar
kets, it is not too much to say accounts for half the
privations which working men are now suffering from
low wages and no wages. Our two staple industries
are admittedly iron and coal. They are controlling
elements in rails, ships, and manufactures of every
description. Every private toll levied on them is a
blight on every related form of employment.
Mr. Mason gave an instructive example of the
effect of a comparatively low royalty.
In Scotland
the minimum royalty on pig-iron is 6s. Some
of the Cleveland royalties on the other hand do
not exceed 3s. 3d. per ton. What is the con
sequence ? Scotland, where all the other conditions
of production are rather more than equal, is invaded
weekly by Cleveland iron to the extent of from 6,000
to 7,000 tons.
Nor is this the worst.
Differential home dues
might be endured, but to handicap the British iron
trade in its strenuous grapple with foreign competition
is a much more serious affair.
In most parts of
Germany the royalty on pig iron is 6d. per ton ; in
France it is 8d., and in both these countries royalties
are national dues, and not, as with us, private black
mail.
In Belgium the ordinary State royalty is
is. 3d. per ton, and even that handicap not
improbably accounts in no small degree for the pre
valent turbulence in that country of miners.
�7
I quote the following weighty sentences from an
admirable address by Mr. William Forsyth, the
eloquent President of the Scottish Land Restoration
League:—“Out of the eighty blast furnaces in
Cumberland forty are at this moment standing idle,
and the others are but partially employed.
There
are many causes which might have the effect of
keeping these forty blast furnaces idle. They might
be idle for want of capital; they might be idle for
want of men willing to work. Well, gentlemen, the
Cumberland furnaces are put out not because of any
lack of capital, for only within the last week or two
a company of employers there were willing to sink
£20,000 in raising iron-ore, and were only prevented
from doing so by the landlord’s ultimatum that he
would not reduce his royalty of 2s. 6d. per ton on
the ore which might be raised. The company found
thatwith this charge they could not raise ore as cheaply
as it could be imported from Spain, and they, therefore, abandoned their project.
Neither can it be
that there are not men able and willing to work, for
an ironmaster in Cumberland writes saying that
there are thousands of men unemployed who would
be glad to find work of any kind in order to save
their wives and children from starvation.”
“ I am informed that the girders of the St. Enoch
Railway Station, in our city, were imported from
j
�8
Belgium, and we know that the Barnsley Railway
Station was built of imported iron. ’ The Midland
Railway Company is at present importing large
quantities of iron and steel sleepers from Belgium.
The streets of London, Liverpool, Dublin, and
Belfast are being laid with tramway rails of foreign
manufacture.
Our Glasgow Municipal Buildings
are at this moment being built with iron girders
brought from Belgium, and paid for from the taxes
collected from the people of Glasgow. On looking
up at these girders we see in prominent letters the
name “ Maclellan,” and in our innocence we think
that if the cost of these buildings is great at any
rate the work is done by our own people.
But this
is not so. The ironmaster to whom I have referred
is himself the owner of eight furnaces specially
adapted to the manufacture of pig-iron and steel rails.
Four of these furnaces are idle, and yet he is actually
importing thousands of tons of iron and steel from
Belgium and Germany.”
Talk of high wages and short hours of labour
“ driving trade out of the country ! ” Why, if these
royalty footpads are not speedily got rid of there will
soon be neither trade nor wages left in it.
One
blast furnace produces in a week six hundred tons of
pig-iron. On that quantity the landlord’s royalties
amount to ^202 ; while the wages of the employes
�9
—managers, engineers, chemists, workmen all told—
average less than one half, or ^95.
The royalties
on British steel rails paid to the landlords amount
to 9s. 6d. per ton ; in Belgium they average is. 9d.
Is it any wonder that the Indian Department of
Government is monthly sending out to India thou
sands of tons of imported iron and steel rails and
sleepers ? Is it any wonder if in most cases it costs
about three times as much to construct a mile of
British railway as any other ?
A Cunard liner making the double or return jour
ney across the Atlantic consumes four thousand one
hundred and twenty-five tons of coal. This means a
royalty to the landlord of ^206 5s., or more than
the wages of the entire crew from captain to cabin
boy. Ina word, the owners of steamers pay to the
lords of land a tribute of ,£274,100 per annum. Of
course passengers and the producers of exports and
the consumers of imports are the ultimate victims.
What, then, is the remedy for this ruinous system
of exploitation ? Is it to be cured, as the deputation
suggested, and as Mr. Conybeare’s Mining Rates
Bill weakly proposes, by establishing a sliding scale
as between landlords and mine-lessees ? Certainly
not, unless the State is to step into the landlord’s
shoes. Every scheme to enable landlords to rob in
moderation is bad.
�IO
We are not without examples of the true solution
of the royalty problem in other lands.
In Germany, speaking generally, the Prussian law
of 1865 prevails. It vests all mineral royalties in
the State. No freeholder can raise minerals on his
freehold without a concession from the Government.
He dare not even, after due notice, prevent private
persons irom entering on his land to bore for the
discovery of minerals. The concessionaire of a mine
is entirely independent of the lord of the surface.
Concessions are made to any qualified person or
persons by a district oberbergamt, or office, on certain
conditions.
Concessionaires must (1) pay to the
State in royalty and inspection dues 2 per cent, per
annum on net produce ; and (2) form a- Benefit
Society, or Knappschajt Verein, for their workmen,
they contributing one-half the funds, the “ hands ”
the other. The Knappschaft Verein supports and
doctors invalid and injured miners, pensions widows,
and educates children free of expense.
In France private royalties were abolished at the
Revolution and made national property. The pre
sent law bears date 1810. It is the same in principle
as the German law. The concessionaire pays 5 per
cent, net produce to the State plus 10 centimes per
franc additional to form an Accidents Relief Fund.
A strictly limited rent is also payable to the lords of
the surface.
�11
The Belgian law (1810) is in the main similar to
the French law', but concessions made under the law
of 1837 are of a less favourable character, and
in some cases the dues mount up to 4s. in the
pound.
But we need not go beyond the limits of our own
Islands for a sound model of mining legislation. An
admirable Act of the Scottish Parliament (1592) still
in force, but audaciously set at defiance by the land
lords of Scotland since the union with England,
appoints a “ Master of the Metals,” with full State
control of all mines and minerals in the realm. He
is to secure 10 per cent, to the State, and is allowed
5 per cent, for inspection dues, &c. “ And by reason
that the said miners are in daily hazard of their lives
by the bad air of the mines and the danger of falling
in the same, and other infinite miseries which daily
occur in the said work, therefore our Sovereign Lord
(James VI.) exempts said miners from all taxa
tion whatever, both in peace and war, and takes
them all, their families and goods, in his special
protection,” &c.
This is the sort of thing that is wanted, and not
sliding scales to. give perpetuity to a system of pal
pable robbery, by which the State is defrauded of
some ten millions sterling per annum. And the
robbers !
�12
What are they ? The drones of the community !
They feed on the mechanic’s labour ;
The starved hind for them compels the stubborn glebe
To yield its unshared harvest.
And yon squalid form, leaner than fleshless misery,
Drags out his life in darkness in the unwholesome mine
To glad their grandeur.
Many faint with toil
That few may know the cares and woes of sloth.
r
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Title
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Mining rents and royalties
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Davidson, John Morrison [1843-1916]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 12, [4] p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Politics for the People
Series number: No. 1
Notes: Publisher's advertisement p. 2. List of reviews of 'The New Book of Kings', by the author, on four unnumbered pages at the end. Tentative date of publication from KVK.
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The Modern Press
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[1885?]
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T401
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Working conditions
Socialism
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Text
Language
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English
Mining
Royalties
Social conditions
Socialism
Working Classes