Bisbee daily review., 1907-12-08
WALKER LOOKS FOR 4 GREAT
 IMPROVEMENT.
In Weekly Letter Points Oat Fact That Copper Situation Has Been Strengthened DlK- ing the Past Week.
(By George L. Walker in Boston Con. mercial)

(By George L. Walker in Boston Con-
 mercial)
 Copper is higner. l. ake is now 14 cents, and electrolytic 13A to 13Z cents per pound. The price rallied sharply this week as a result of the renewal of the foreign buying de- mand. European advices state that the low price has caused copper to be purchased more heavily For roof ing and other similar uses, from which it was debarred when it sold above 20 cents. China has bought a considerable quantity of copper for coinage and other purposes. Domes- tic consumers are still buying from hand to mouth, but they are pre- pared to purchase quite heavily If the price goes back to 1874 cents.
 There has been a further curtail- ment of production in Butte, Utah and Arizona. Senator Clarks mines have reduced about 50 per cent. All of the smelters in the Boundary, B. C., district are closed. The increased buying demand, in view of the heavy curtailment, is likely to carry the price Of copper back to 15 cents; and the market should settle around that level for some time to csme.
 Unmistakable signs of returning confidence are beginning to make their appearance Money is getting easier. Both the public and the banks are releasing the currency they have been boarding. Investors are increasing their purchase of securi- ties, and one by one the bear traders are changing their positions from the short to the long side of the market. As yet prices have advanced only , per cent to 15 per cent from the bottom quotations made on the panic days. The coppers have recovered | relatively more than the railroads ana industrials. Even the stocks os those companies which have passed or re- duced their dividends are in good de- mand at substantial advances from
 the lowest There are very great | many investors who know that the present depression in the metal mar ket will soon be past and forgotten, ] and who realize that year in and year out coppers pay much larger re l turn on the investment than any otb- CT class of stock; and it is from these that the present buying demand is coming.
 While conditions are not such as to warrant the belief that there will be immediate return to a bull market, it is reasonable to expect a consider able rise in prices from this level. Stocks should certainly sell higaer under present conditions than they did two or three weeks ago when half a dozen bank failures were be- ing reported daily and five times as many more were expected. At that time money was practically unob- tainable; now loans can be made and business conducted on a normal basis. The premium on currency is declining very rapidly, and will soon disap- pear altogether. The break in the price Of copper, the money stringency. Failures. reduction of labor fnrnes and curtaflment in all lines of trade have been pretty fully discounted by the stock market, and sentiment is quite sure to improve steadily for some time to come.
 Nearly all of the coppers are selling too low; but 1t seems to me that Old Dominion, Utah Consolidated Copper Range, Osceola, Quincy, Mohawk. Amalgamated, Anaconda, North Butte. Butte Coalition, Cumberland Ely, Utah Copper, Nevada Consolidated Boston Consolidated, Greene and Bingham are the best stocks to buv
 Old Dominion is probably given less credit for it's achievements than any other operating copper mining company. Its 300. 900 shares are sell ing at about S22, or a total market valuation of $6,6OO, 900 for is reduc- ton plant, general equipment, mine. ore in sight and all it's cuick assets. In the popular mind Old Dominicn has never made good. Though 1t has paid two or three small dividends, it nas been a Jonah proposition from start to finish. This opinion is wrong It has been a big earner of profits.
 l first visited the company's prop erty 1901. Chas. s Smith was elected president of the company in 1902, and later on be interested Phelps, Dodge 6 Co, and brought about the consolidation of the old Dominion and United Globe compan- les. Through this amalgamation the company received $300,000 in cash. and some credit in addition, to be used in the completion of it's reduc- tion plant When I visited the prop erty last year the only thing left of the old equipment which I had seen previously was A small one-story office building about % feet square. Even bit of the old equipment had been razed and an entire new plant erected.
 Aside from the Copper Queen, the Old Dominion is now one Of the best equipped copper mining properties in Arizona. It has a thoroughly up-ro- date smelter of five blast furnaces. capable of treating from 2,000 to 2,500 tons of ore daily, and a concentration of 500 tons daily capacity. It has built six miles of standard gauge railroad to serve it's mines and reduc- ton pant and equipped it vita fonr locomotives and the necessary ore cars. All of it's shafts, including it's working shaft, are new from the scr- face down. Their equipment Is new and modern. The company's mines have five times as much ore in sight now as they did six years ago, ana the reduction plant is capable of put ting out four or five times as much