EDITORIAL PAGE — Is there no justice?

It was with sorrow that we learned recently of the death of television icon Raymond Burr. The Canadian actor will always be remembered for his role as that winningest of lawyers, Perry Mason. His demise brought to mind the declaration wrung from every witness who stood in the box at a Perry Mason trial — that he or she would speak “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

It’s unfortunate that governments do not always take the same oath. For example, “the whole truth” did not emerge from U.S. government pronouncements of proposed revisions to the General Mining Law of 1872. To win public support, the government reduced the issue to a single provision in the act: the $5-per-acre fee companies pay for the right to mine a deposit. The government maintained that, by charging such a minuscule amount, the public was being fleeced by “greedy” miners (mostly money-grubbing foreigners, no less). The government wondered aloud why mining companies make millions of dollars — billions in some cases — by paying what might amount to only $10,000 or $30,000 or even $50,000 for the right to mine a deposit. The government advanced its argument by publicly highlighting American Barrick Resources, the most vulnerable target around. It is foreign, that is, Canadian. It makes gobs of money. It’ll be making even more as time passes. And under the 1872 Mining Act, it will pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 to $100,000, maybe, for the right to extract the Basin and Range gold in Nevada.

By promulgating such a simplistic and, it seems, deliberately misleading impression, the government was assured of public sympathy. Before Congress today is a bill calling for an 8% production royalty. Another, more sympathetic bill calls for a 2% royalty. Whichever bill passes, the government’s argument won the day. And the miners will pay!

But hold on a minute. Having miners pay a per-acre charge for mining rights is analogous to a private citizen having to buy a licence for a car. It’s true that for, say, $100 and a licence plate, the government has granted you the liberty to tool around town or country in your shiny Caddie or busted-up, elderly Volkswagen. But the government would never be so foolish as to suggest the $100 represented the sole cost of obtaining and operating your car.

First, you had to learn how to drive, which probably cost a few bucks. Then you bought a car (add another $15,000 minimum). Then came the cost of insurance (another $1,000 or more). Mix in heavily taxed gasoline and oil charges, and the continuing weight of maintenance costs and the occasional bill for major and minor breakdowns. The sum will not resemble, even remotely, the $100 government fee.

And so it is with mining and the $5-per-acre charge. The real costs to mining companies of exploring for, and developing to production, a deposit do not resemble, even remotely, the $5-per-acre fee.

Unfortunately, most citizens, while they have some experience with the true costs of their personal transportation, have none when it comes to mining. So the government can blithely utter partial truths and win over an ill-informed public on the mining issue.

From the mining perspective, even Perry Mason would have been hard-put to get at the whole truth.