"The Coming Race", Chapter XXIX, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

How convenient all the miners were replaced by immigrant labor that didn't speak English :-P

The picture used is "Mine Entrance - San Bernardino County, CA, USA" by Ron Kroetz, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/).

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1951/1951-h/1951-h.htm#link2HCH0029