e range of
relative emphasis on these two underlying considerations. In the United
States, at one extreme, the laws have been such as to give the maximum
possible freedom to private initiative, and to allow easy acquirement of
mineral resources from the government. At the other extreme, in South
Africa, Australia, and South America, it is impossible for the
individual to secure title in fee simple from the government; he must
develop the mineral resources on what amounts to a lease or rental
basis, the ownership remaining in the government.

The trend of events in mineral laws is toward the latter procedure. This
is evidenced in the United States by the withdrawal of large areas of
public lands from entry, and by the recent enactment substituting
leasing privileges for specified minerals for the outright ownership
which was allowed under the federal law before the lands were withdrawn
from entry. The withdrawal of oil lands from public entry in other parts
of the world is another illustration (see pp. 131-132).

NATIONALIZATION OF MINERAL RESOURCES

Nationalization, as this term is popularly understood, means financial
control and management of mineral resources by the government, either
through actual ownership or through measures of public control designed
to eliminate private interest from the active direction of the
resources. In a broader sense, it may be used to include a considerable
variety of restrictive and coercive measures adopted by the government
in the proposed interests of public welfare,--as illustrated by the
war-time measures instituted by the United States and other governments
relating to the mining and distribution of coal, and to coal prices. In
this broader sense various aspects of nationalization are indicated
under other headings in this and other chapters.

It is clear that other countries of the world have gone farther in the
direction of nationalization of mineral resources than the United
States. The tendency was manifest before the war, and has been strongly
emphasized during and since the war. In the United States,
notwithstanding war-time measures, the subject has not yet come
prominently forward, at least by name. On the other hand, there has been
growing recognition of the dependence of public welfare on the proper
handling of mineral resources--particularly of the energy resources,
coal and oil,--as evidenced by a variety of proposals and measures under
consideration in legislat