The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1916-06-17
TO DROP
IS PREDICTION
METALS CANNOT CONTINUE AT
WAR PRICES SAYS
TRADE JOURNAL

During the last year view have
witnessed extraordinary rises in
/ many of the metals-figures hav-
ing been attained that five years
e would have been characterized
as preposterous if anyone hald talk
ed about them says the Engineer
ing and Mining Journal. Among
the major, zinc has been the most
/ spectacular; among the minors,
aluminium, anthony and tungsten
have been the star performers.
OF late there has been a sharp
ly declining tendency in the mar
kets for zinc, anthony and tung-
stem that probably foreshadows the
return of those metals to normal
levels. There is nothing mysterious
or malevolent in the recent behav-
ior of these markets. On the con-
trary, their action is precisely what
ought to be and what ought to be
expected all along.
The cycle is obvious. Extraor-
binary and insistent demand ele-
Yates prices. High prices stimulate
new production. Sooner or later
the time comes when the supply
outstrips the demand. ~whereupon
the price declines, eventually reach
ing the normal level at which the
business may be conducted with
the ordinary percentage of profit.
The time of such a cycle is de-
termined primarily by the facility
with which new production may be
organized.
In spelter the deficiency was new
er of ore supply, but rather OF
smelling capacity. During the last
year new smelling capacity has
been provided for in a rapid and
sven romantic Since the
FIRST of 1916 the reports of the or
g%anization of new smelling COM
panies have been so frequent that
it became a good deal of a job
to keep track of them. Similarly
has the production of anthony ore
and tungsten ore been stimulated
in all parts of the world, but os-
pecially in the United States. Even
the old anthony mines of Ar
kansas and the old tungsten mines
of Connecticut have been reopened
Declines in prices were inevitable
The same things will eventually
happen in the cases of copper, lead
and aluminium. That it has not
already happened with those metals
is due to the facts that the pro-
duction of them could not be in
creased so quickly and moreover,
the business in those metals is
more concentrated and better or
ganized than in other cases, and
for that reason, partly, the advances
in them were not so extravagant.
The alarming thing about the re-
turn to normal conditions is that
so many people have forgotten what
normal conditions are. Tungsten
miners are grieving about the de-
preston in their industry arising
from a decline of the price for ore
to $50 per unit. Previous to the
war tungsten ore was worth about
Sc to 81 per unit. In the Joplin
district there is resentment respect
ing the fall in the price of zinc
ore to $S5 per ton. Previous to
the war it was worth from $40
to $45. /,
Both in the tungsten and zinc
districty mass-meeting are being
held to consider what steps should
be taken to relieve the suffering
miners, threats are being made to
The effect that ore will be held
back until smelters pay what it is
worth, that mines will be closed
town if necessary, that the wages
for labor will be reduced, that
there will be steps to secure a
tariff that will keep ore prices up
to what they ought to be, namely,
the maximum attained during the
war period.
This exhibition of greed is hum
an but nevertheless is notifying
by reason of it's childishness. How
ever, there is no doubt that many
people are going to lose money
in the further decline of prices for
ores and metals from levels that
even now are extravagantly high.
High prices had the natural effect
of bringing into production mines
and work that normally could not
pay.
Mines were equipped and new
works were built. The phe-
nominal profits that were expected
were sadly eaten into by the in
satiable demands of labor and the
increasing inefficiency of labor.
When some people talk about be-
ing unable to produce zinc ore for
less than SIS or $50 per ton they
are probably telling the truth. De-
posits yielding only 1 to l 1-2%