Mining as a Basic Industry

Mining and Agriculture are 2 basic industries which led to the development of modern civilization. Other basic industries include farming and fishing and more recently manufacturing.

Agriculture gives us chiefly our food and the materials from which clothes and some of our buildings are made.

Mining supplies us with :
structural material, such as stone, glass sand, clays and cement fuels, natural gas, coal and petroleum abrasives, such as garnet and corundum fertilizers, potash, phosphates and nitrates various industrial uses, such as sulfur, graphite, borax, and asbestos metallic minerals, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, iron and aluminum precious stones, diamonds, rubies and sapphires fissionable materials rare metals.
From these substances come the materials which are of such vital importance in time of war and which, in times of peace, are so necessary for the growth of our arts, sciences and industry.

Mineral Resources and International Relations
The importance of international negotiations to a country whose reserves of necessary minerals has been depleted is obvious. Mines are WASTING ASSETS and a country once rich in minerals may later be compelled to import these essential materials. For any nation, a well balanced supply of minerals is better than a supply of some and a lack of others. Of these resources, the mineral fuels and iron are of primary importance. Copper, lead, and zinc come next. With them should be ranked the fertilizer group of phosphates, potash and nitrates together with sulfur, of so much importance in the chemical industries. Gold and silver are of little importance in building up industrial development.

Nickel, manganese, fluorspar, vanadium, tungsten and other mineral products - asbestos, mica, mercury, graphite, antimony and tin - are needed in industry. However, the quantities required are small and can be transported long distances to industrial centers. Industrial nations must have secure access to such resources and their control is a matter of international concern.
Most industrial nations lack sufficient resources to be self-sufficient and normally STOCKPILE the necessary mineral raw resources. Under the urge of economic nationalism, there has been a multiplication of production in the mineral industry throughout the world, not because of a shortage of world supply but through fear of being at the mercy of another nation in times of emergency.