THE NON 2 NUGGET
Published Monday. Wednesday and Friday by The
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
Nome. Alaska
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 61b
W. A. and EMILY IUHVIIER Editors
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
Monday, May 3, 1948
THE TWO VIEWPOINTS
Two bits of news during April have set us think
ing about gold and the importance of gold in the
rather dour future we seem to be facing. One was
a radio report, authentic or otherwise, which told
of a gold discovery somewhere behind the iron cur
tain which supposedly dwarfed any discovery hith
erto made and which related the 24-hour manner
in which the fabulous find is being worked in an
effort to achieve parity with the United States in
the matter of gold reserves.
The other was an excerpt from the annual re
port of Bralorne Mines Ltd., which reads as follows:
"With an improved but still inadeguate supply of
manpower , operations were maintained at about
two-thirds capacity. Production was greater than in
either of the two preceding years but the profit
therefrom did not show a corresponding increase.
This was due to a further decline in the general ec
onomic situation for gold mining. Rising costs had to
be absorbed in the face of a drop in the price re
ceived for gold from $38.50 per ounce in 1946 to
$35.00,"
"Including an increase of SI.00 per day granted
to all employees during the year, wage rates are
now approximately 50 per cent higher than in 1939.
On the other hand, output, in terms of ounces pro
duced per man-hour has declined 48 per cent. The
operating cost of producing an ounce of gold has
risen from $11.50 in 1939 to $23.50 in 1947. Contribut
ing factors were the smaller tonnage milled and the
shortage of manpower."
"Increased costs without a compensating ad
vance in the price of gold also effect the value of
ore. A higher grade must be mined to meet such
costs and what was low-grade but profitable ore
becomes marginal."
There you have, very nicely briefed, the position
of gold mining in the United States as well as in
Canada. Rising costs reducing profitable ore to mar
ginal or definitely unprofitable ore, necessitating
selective mining and waste of ore that should be
mined, suspension of dividends, closed down prop
erties . . . general stagnation in the gold mining
industry.
And so, while Russia builds her gold reserves and
gets gold at any cost, we maintain that there is no
occasion for raising the price of gold and refuse
to allow our miners to sell their product on the op
en market because other nations might not like it.
(Alaska Weekly)
RUSSIAN BREAD LINE
(Alaska Weekly)
Dislocation of retail distribution is said to be re
sponsible for the long bread lines before food stores
in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. We strongly
suspect, however, that the real explanation of those
bread lines is to be found in recent currency and
price changes and the abolition of ration cards for
food. True, the government called in old ruble is
sues last December, giving each holder of 10 of the
old notes only a single new ruble note in exchange;
hence the amount of money in circulation has ben
greatly reduced. However, the government intro
duced at the same time a new price system des
cribed as a compromise between the prices former
ly charged in ration stores and in non ration stores.
In case of bread and flour the new prices are
about 12 per cent below previous ration prices,
while the price of meats, sugar and some other
foods are kept at the level or ration prices. Since
current wages and salaries are being paid in new
PASSING THE BATON
rubles at the same rates as old rubles, most of the
city workers are really better off than they were be
fore the currency reform became effective. That is,
their current wages and salaries will enable them
to buy more foodstuffs of certain kinds; and their
outlays for clothing and footwear will also be re
duced, since most of these articles had to be bought
formerly in nonrationed stores at prices about three
times as high as those recently established. The
people who stand to lose under this new system
are the peasants, who will receive much less money
from food sold in the open market.
Despite conversion of cash holdings into new
money at the rate of 10 to 1, large amounts of cash
remain in the possession of the public as well as
savings deposits (converted into the new currency
at varying rates). Paul A. Baran, whose study of
Currency Reform in the USSR appeared in the
March issue of the Harvard Business Review, estim
ates that there are about 25 billions of these new
ruble holdings or hoards (in addition, of course, to
the money received currently in the form of wages
and salaries) "chasing after goods." Under the cir
cumstances, it is not at all surprising to hear that
Russians are queing up before food stores.
Unless Russia has an abundance of food ready
for distribution, the almost inevitable result of sud
denly abandoning rationing restrictions and simul
taneously announcing official price schedules that
actually encourage increased buying, will be sell
outs; or, as the Russians prefer to put it, dislocation
of retail distribution. Whether that dislocation is
merely the result of a passing pressure of demand
that causes immediately accessible stocks to vanish
or a clean-out of reserves as well is not indicated.
That is the really important question. For if the Rus
sians are eating up their reserve food stocks faster
than they can be replenished, they will have to take
| back some of the benefits they have bestowed on the
'city workers undef the new system of pricing with
jout rationing.
_
DRIVE ON TAX EVADERS
BROUGHT IN $1,938,183,000.
Total of $1,938,183,000 was collected last year as
a result of a drive on income tax evaders.
This is a statement of Edward I. McLarney, Dep
uty Commissioner of the Income Tax Unit of the
Bureau of Internal Revenue.
The amount collected by the government during
the fiscal year which ended June 30, 1947 may not
be equalled this year .The economy drive In Con
gress resulted in the discharge of the investigating
agents employed by the bureau.
We think it highly important that the Govern;
ment have sufficient agents to investigate the in
come tax returns of individuals and corporations.
The knowledge that this likely will cause some tax
payers to make a fuller report of their income.
%
Communication -
CHANGE OUR ASSESSMENT
WORK LAW IN ALASKA
The Assessment Work Law as
drafted by Congress many years
ago, as most of tha mines of the
Territory of Alaska understand ti,
requires the claim owner to do
one hundred dollars worth o£ rim
provements on each unpatented
claim of twenty acres or less each
year.
The intention of this law was
I
to develop a claim to find out
the possibilities of its becoming
a producer.
But the law defeated its own
purpose in not making it com
pulsory to file an affidavit, for
record as to the nature of these
improvements, but made "It op
tional with the claim owner as
to his choice in this matter of re
cord.
Our records as of today on the
whole are of no value in owner
ship in a specific claim, whether
the annual assessment work was
| done or- if it is public domain.
If you know a certain claim has
not had the annual assessment
work performed on it and is
rightfully public domain, and you
stake it for yourself, or with a
power of attorney for another per
son authorizing you to stake such
claims for him, you are apt to be
called a claim jumper, and if
you insist on claiming ownership,
you may become involved in ex
i pensive litigation.
! There is a way open to turn
this outmoded Assessment Work
j Law into an asset to the Territory
'of Alaska, by our united effort
to grin£ pressure to bear in Con
gress, to eliminate the Assessment
Law in Alaska and allow our
Territory to pass a measure to
tax, let us say, ten dollars on
each and every claim that is not
actually in operation and is not
patented.
This tax to be paid to the
Commissioner or Recorder in each
Recording Precinct where the
claims are on record.
You would then have a record
at all times as to the ownership
of such claims or whether it was
public domain and open for lo
cation.
It would be the means of elim
inating claim-jumping and costly
litigations from same, and above
| all it would relieve the claim own
| er, who now tries to comply with
| our Assessment Work Law, of
doing work that is very often
of no value to his claim or to
himself, and costs him many more
times than this tax of, say ten
dollars.
This tax would be a tremend
ous NET revenue to our Terri
tory and would be the means for
building and maintaining roads
to our mining sections, that now
have no roads and are undevel
oped owing to the high cost of
transportation.
We would have a fund adequate
for establishing landing fields for
large planes to land freight at a
reasonable rate in outlying sec
tions.
This change in our Assessment
Work Law would be the means
I of relieving our Territory of con
templated tax measures that
would further burden our min
ers and operators who are the
backbone of the mining industry
| in this vast Territory of ours.
This change can ge accomp
! lished when you and I get be
j hind our Legislators and bring
pressure to bear at the right place
> —Congress.
Signed- A. Miner
\