“Using Abadarian arbitrators is fine for any private enterprises that currently exist, but as far as I am aware most of the mining in this country is a state affair, and we are here to determine the affairs of the state. Are you proposing that the state convert all extant mines to private enterprises? Under whose ownership? That’s certainly one of the options available to us.”

What?

”Nowhere else has this convention proposed legalized thievery, and I would vote against any proposal to do so here.”

"A strange definition of thievery, for the state to willingly hand over power to private enterprises," says Voshrelka, dryly, mostly just to needle Vidal.

“If the mines are taken without recompense from their current owners to deliver to those private enterprises, what else would you call it?”

“My Lord, I would not legalize thievery and I apologize for speaking so carelessly that you might think I would. I merely meant that the ownership of the mines under Asmodean rule often changed hands via unclear legal principle. Any clarification of the legal status of mines will have to take some stance on ownership; even enshrining the current de-facto controllers ownership would face some opponents. Yet doing so is integral to attracting investment; no one will invest in a count’s mine if the count’s claim on the mine is that their predecessor wrested it from a baron in an Asmodean power struggle.”

“Thank you for clarifying, Delegate Brighthelm. The problem is a real one. I suggest we approach it in the same way the issue of land ownership in general has been addressed, as that faced the same problems. The lords who are unrepentantly Asmodean have been and are being removed, with the Queen and her vassals elevating worthy replacements. Is there a reason to treat the title to mines on a land differently from the land itself, in cases where those did not previously differ?”