(La Época—June 14, 1870)

Several newspapers have begun to address the Rio-Tinto mines due to a bill presented to the Spanish Parliament by the Minister of Finance for their sale. The issue is significant and deserves to be examined with special interest. As we consider ourselves unqualified to treat the matter in depth, we intend to illuminate it by presenting the opinions of experts whose knowledge lends undeniable authority to their assessments.

Among the scientists who have addressed this issue, special mention goes to the inspector of the Corps of Mining Engineers, D. José de Monasterio y Correa, who has just published a pamphlet titled “Observations on the Sale of the Rio-Tinto Mines,” in which he sets out his judgment with method and clarity, supporting it with relevant and reasonable data and considerations. Although briefly, we will provide a summary of this interesting work.

Mr. Monasterio, after demonstrating that the supposed difficulties in accurately appraising the mines do not exist, addresses the question of the advisability of their sale, deciding in the affirmative. The Rio-Tinto mines are located in the province of Huelva, 60 kilometers from the capital and 66 kilometers from Seville, with no communication to either point except by bridle paths. Operations date back to 1790, and the mines cover an area of 1,848 hectares, which corresponds to the same number of mining rights. The deposits identified to date within this large area occupy only a small part of it, and of the 1,848 hectares that the mining estate comprises, the mineral mass alone extracts over 11,500 metric quintals of copper every year. Having demonstrated that the Treasury gains no advantage from the exploitation of the mines, the author of the pamphlet offers the following judicious assessments:

“I do not need to fight the phantom that if the mines fall into foreign hands they will take our wealth. What will happen with the sale of the mines? Capitals will come, no matter from where, that must be used directly for the good of the locality and indirectly for the benefit of the entire country. So what does it matter if the gold is French, English, Swedish, or Spanish? After all, can those thousands of millions, which according to some are locked up in the Rio-Tinto mines, be immediately loaded into wagons and later taken to nearby beaches, without leaving a trace of their passage through the country? Those who think this way have a poor idea of what a mine is, of the immense sacrifices its exploitation costs, of the momentum it gives to all the arts and trades for many kilometers around, of the beneficial influence commerce receives, of the infinite resources it provides in all spheres, always in proportion to the scale on which the works are developed and the importance that the products presented to the market acquire. From all this movement, the locality first, the country later, reap excellent fruits, and this is the mission that the State is called upon to fulfill.”

It should be noted that in competition with the State’s mines, those of Tharsis, El Buitrón, San Miguel, San Telmo, Aznar-Collar, and many others are being exploited, not counting the very important ones of Santo Domingo, in Portugal, which as early as 1862 were exploiting a mass of copper pyrite 500 meters long and with an average thickness of 75 meters. The Tharsis and El Buitrón companies have built railways to transport their products to Huelva, while the State, meanwhile, continues to make deliveries by mule, while letting the rails it bought years ago to establish a railway to its mines rust in Seville.

Mr. Monasterio, after expanding on extensive considerations that a lack of space prevents us from reproducing, but which we recommend to intelligent people and those who have to decide on the important matter under debate, formulates his thinking for the sale on the following bases:

1. The division of the official estate into holdings is not advisable; rather, the sale should be carried out in integrum, with full rights to the land and subsoil.
2. The sale must be in perpetuity, without prejudice to the fact that the purchaser, as the owner of the subsoil, is subject to the legislation in force on mining matters.
3. Payment should be made in installments of no less than five to six years, and no more than nine to ten years.
4. The amount of the auction must be paid in cash.
5. A period of at least four months must elapse between the announcement of the auction and the award.

We conclude by congratulating Mr. Monasterio for his notable work and hoping that his observations will be taken into account when the issue is resolved.

After the preceding paragraph was written, we received the official abstract of yesterday’s session, from which we see that the bill referring to the sale of the Rio-Tinto mines was approved at the last minute after a brief debate. The modifications introduced by the commission are of little importance and in no way alter the original idea.

The report states that since the total annual production of the metalliferous zone in which the State’s copper mines are located amounts to 32,000 metric quintals, these mines only represent one-third of these products, thus resulting in a notable disadvantage against them, which demonstrates the inconvenience of exploitation by the Treasury. Everything leads one to believe that the projected change of ownership will give great development to the mining wealth of the province of Huelva, with private industry obtaining infinitely more beneficial results than those achieved for so many years by the administration. The increase in public wealth in this regard will also redound to the benefit of the Treasury.

The discussion of the bill was, as we have said, very brief. Messrs. Calderón y Herce and Pellón y Rodríguez made some observations on the whole without opposing the idea, and the Minister of Finance and Mr. Herreros de Tejada, on behalf of the commission, responded to them. The nine articles of the report were approved almost without debate, and once the sale of the mines was agreed upon, the process will proceed after the studies of reconnaissance and appraisal are carried out, for which a period of six months is set. The auction must be announced with the same amount of time, in order for the largest possible number of bidders to take part.