A Disastrous Change

Referring to the bill of Eepresentative Doremus, aimed at the Houghton nining school, and that of Senator Doran, to lay a tax of twenty cents a ton upon the output of the upper pennsula iron mines, the Marquette Minng Journal punctures the aseumptions set, up by the authors of those measures in a manner so cntertaining and convincing that they need ouly to be airly read to satisfy any intelligent person of the soundness of its iacU and :onclusions. Oi the proposition to tax the mines the Mining Journal says: "Of all tlie iron mines wrought last scason in the Lake Superior región, ïiot, over one-iourth realizad any proíit whatever for their owners. Several were run at a loss. A few made, money, but none could show sucli a margin of proïit on the year's work a.s all are credited with by the lower península papers and legislators which advocate the imposition of ruinous tax upon them contemplated by Senator Doran's bill." There is 110 qu-stiou of the trutli of the foregoiug statement. If tliere is any defect it lies in the tact that the Mining Journal has understated the condición. Less than two weeks ago, while discussing Senator Doran's bill wil li a very reputable citizen of the upp península who is a practical iron miner and has been in the business from early youth, lic aaid: "Let them pass that bUl and it will close every eased mine in the upper península. ïn less than six months there will be 10,000 miners out of work. It will check all further development of mining interests in that región until we can put matiers iu tram íor a separate state existence, which we would be obüged to seek for self-preservation." The Marquette Mining Journal intimates, also, that the penínsulas can be held together on the basis oi fair tréatment only and says, "We had very little cause for complaint in this respect while the Iiepublican party held the reina of power in Michigan, li' the party now in the ascendaney a hostile policy toward.us, it will thereby prove itsell unfit to administer the affairs of a great state, and time will soon give the voters of the upper península a chance to get even with it." By the nieasures of Messrs. Doran and Doremus, the Democratie party lias already destroyed all confidence that might have been reposed in its professious previous to the fall election by the upper península. The success of that party lias already proved a serious blow to the upper section of the state, and may yet prove trous. lint her citizens are ahve to the danger. The deeply regret tho causes which placed the Deraocrats ín power, and wijl retrieve the state at the earliest practicable moment, placing it again in the hands of the party ander whose wise and fostering hand ior ö yeara Lake Superior w;is developed from a wüdernesa to the proud and prosperous condition which Bhe now holds - almost an empire withiu herself. Tho attitude of the Democracy, if persisted in, will be even more farreaching than we have iiidicated. With in the past two or three years there has grown up in some of the Southern States an iron industry which is fiercely antagonlstlc to the upper península of Michigan, and will requlre the most strenuoTiB efforts to Éiuccessfully coinpeLe with it. Senator Doran's bill playa directly into the hands of the South by striking a ci'ippliug blow at qur home iuterests. Tuis idea of helping everything but home interests is good Democratie doctrine, and the senator is therefore consistent; but it wou't strike the upper península iavorably, and they will fall into an ugly way of comparing the fair and fostering policy of the Eepublican party with the present destructive acts of the Democracy, which will shut that party out of Michigan for the next 50 years in spite of any gerryma ndcr Ihat can be made. Indeed, it is believed by tnany that it has already done so. Democraey in Lake Superior is dead. Doran and mus mimlorcd