Bisbee daily review., 1917-08-26
COST OF MINING COPPER NOW IS
 HUGE QUESTION
Engineering and Mining Jour- nal Points Out That Many of Claims for Low Costs Were Cut Below Actual Figures.

The Engineering and Mining Jour. nal says:
 It maks all the difference whose OK is being gored. Until recently. the homogeneous of most of the copper producing companies took the greatest pride in showing how cheaply they could produce copper. The broker age houses. interested in promoting movements in the stock market. went the arrangements better, while the f. nancial papers capped the climax with their tables of alluringly low costs and wonderful profits computed therefrOm at a scale of prices for copper. But since the cost of producing copper has appeared likely to be a factor in the determination of price for the met al under government control. all members of the old chorus have been singing in a different key. The pro ducer who not long ago was blithely alleged to be making copper at 10c per pound is now lugubriously represented as being subject to a cost of 19 or 20c. Wherefore the remarkable change of tune?. That question will doubtless be asked by some senator from Mis- souri. who will find plain equivocatiOn in the high figures talked about today
 Not so, dear senator. the equivoca- tion was in the low figures of yore. oh fn grace. inasmuch as for many years we have charged that many famous copper-producing companies did not really produce at such low figures as they represented. our intimations to that effect usually drawing out a cloud of brickbats. In what ways were the old figures. even those offici- ally reported. misrepresentations? In a great variety of ways.
 In the first place. companies report ed figures analogous to the cost of running an automobile on new tires. In other words. these was not proper allowance for repairs and renewals. In the next place expenses that properly belonged to repairs and renewals were often charged to capital account. where they were forgotten by the stockholder who merely examines re- ports from year to year. although the treasurer never forgot about them when he was called upon to supply cash for their payments of dividends or other purposes. This is one reason why dividend disbursements consti- tute only a percentage of what cop per-mining company has been earning apparently. There are few. if any. companies that have allowed for the amortization of the plants that they have been wearing out or depreciatins in other ways. The way that works is that a company after 10 years or so finds that it needs a new mill or smeltery and then has to cease pay ing dividends until the new plant is paid for
 Another common way of misrepre- senting things has been by giving the mine credit for the earnings on large sums of capital invested in railways or other branches of business. In some cases the railway Is used simply for the transportation of ore from the mine to reduction works. but in many cases mining companies operate rail ways not only for the transportation of ores and metallurgical products. but also for a general carrying business. Thus. the Nevada Northern of Nevada Consolidated. Bingham & Garfield of Utah Copper Company. Mississippi River & Bonne Terre of the St. Joseph Lead Company. In many cases the earnings from such railroads are de- ducted from the cost of producing copper.
 In some cases this interrelatiOn be- tween mine and railway may be the subject of hocus-pocus. Sometimes there is opened an ore deposit in a remote part of rough country. which ore deposit becomes valuable only when a railway is built to bring out the product Sometimes such a rail way must be built through country that has no other immediate resources to speak of. The cost of producing copper From such deposit must. therefore. include the cost of the rail way. However, it is a common prac- tice to have one corporation for mining and another corporation for railway building and operating. The promoters of such concern may give things a decidedly different look ac-