The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-07
WHAT ABOUT COPPER?

| Why the Foreign Demand Fell Off and
| the Supply lncreased-Can Price be
Kept Up?
The attention of the business world
on both sides of the Atlantic is en-
crossed just now with the great strug-
gle in the American copper market.
Other interests besides those of copper
are at stake, and the result will be me-
mentous. 1t is watched for with alb
sorbed attention.
We have frequently alluded to the
great change that has recently come
| over the entire copper producing and
manufacturing business Up to about
| ten years ago copper was used for COM
paratively few purposes, these being
chiefly the manufacture of cooking
utensils and household furnishings and
| for familiar uses in the arts and in
shipbuilding. But the application OF
electricity to lighting and motive power
opened practically a new hemisphere IN
the copper world. The demand for
copper enormously increased, and it
was then realized that the supply or
the metal was, in sense, limited.
Many copper mines are in pats OF
the world where they can hardly be
worked profitably, and the business of
producing and refining copper Is eX-
tremely difficult of inception. Copper
has much more than doubled in price
in the last four years; but its produc-
ton has increased but little, the rate of
yearly increase being less than ten per
cent.
The London market for copper has
always established the worlds price
fc, the staple. Two years ago, when
the new demand for the article became
acute, the London merchants refused
| to recognize the stable character OF the
movement and declared that 1T was due
sinoply to the opera tons of an Ameri-
can pool. The Amalgamated Copper
company had just been formed In this
country, and foreigners declared that
the Americans had started a. syndicate
TO corner copper just as the Frenchmen
Secretan had done some years ago: ana
they predicted the same disastrous re-
suits for the Amalgamated company as
attended the efforts of M. Secretan
Copper in England is a speculative COM
modify, as it is not here, and the Lon
don dealers in it attempted to depress
the price by speculative contracts Tor
the decline. In this and in the general
position assumed by them regarding
the character of the copper market they
were signally wrong; and London lost
It's place as the arbiter of the world s
selling price Of copper The BRUSH
merchants were forced to buy In at
great loss the copper which they had
agreed to deliver and which they did
not possess at the time they made the
contracts. There was an immense de-
velopment of copper manufacturing in
Germany as in this country copper
was sold as fast as it could be mined,
and there was no surplus stock Oh
conner in the world, Consumers every
where bought it as fast as they could
get II and were willing to pay almost
any price for 1t.
But 1t now begins to look as though
this state of affairs had changed. An
industrial reaction has set in all over
Frrope. and, in more than in any other
country in Germany, which mas been
the chief European consumer OF copper,
and where the construction of electrical
workshops has amounted to a positive
craze. The financial and industrial mis-
fortune that has overtaken Germany
is grave A large proportion or the
electrical companies which were formed
there have been ruined; at any rate.
Germany has retired from the copper
market as buyer. England has
virtually done the same. The net re-
suit of it all. so far as copper interests
in this country are concerned, is that
A orin tho
first eight months of this year are only
about half what they were last year.
being. in exact figures 6369l tons, as
against 115774 tons in 1900. Compar-
ing these figures with those of Ameri-
can copper production and with the
statistics of copper imports. 1t is evil
dent that there must have been either
consumed or accumulated in this coun-
try for the first eight months OF the
present year 1873, S63 tons of copper, as
against S5. 1872 tons for the similar period
in 1900.
Il is known that our own copper con-
sumption has increased somewhat over
last year; but obviously it could not
have taken care of the enormous sur
plus stock of copper remaining III TINS
country as shown by the above fisures.
american consumption, to have ac-
complished this, would have had to in
crease over SIS per cent. beyond that OF
the previous year. 1t seems certain,
therefore, that large quantities OF I'M
sold copper are accommodating in our
market as distinctly surplus product.
Yet while the price of copper in Europe
has declined greatly the price here has
remained unchanged