Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1917-12-20
PRESENT SPELTER PRICE
ALLOWS NO PROFIT
No Better Than Prices of 1913
Production Cost Having Al
most Doubled Since
Then

From an editorial in the Engineer
ing and Mining Journal:
"If anybody had said four years
ago that the price for common spelter
would be.about &c per pound and that
producers would nevertheless be COM
planning that they could not get a
new dollar for an old one, he would
have been promptly and properly pro-
nounced q lunatic. However, what
would then have seemed so utterly
fantastic is grim and serious reality
now. The explanation is that all in
ductry is on a basis multiplied by
about 1.6 probably more than that
in the case of zinc) in so far as cost
Of production is concerned, and a
price Of &c for spelter now is no bet
ter than &c in 1913 and probably not
quite SO good. AS compared with
the first quarter of about $4,000 tons
to rate of about $4,000 tons at pres
ent. Many smelters are being OPP
Grated at only partial capacity; many
have been closed; some have been
abandoned.
No Hope for Fat Return
'Now, it is useless for zinc smelt-
ers to delude themselves with any
hopes of q return of the fat times of
1856. The competition among
themselves and their great surplus of
smelling capacity will prevent that;
in short, natural conditions. About
the only chance for a return Of unna-
tural conditions that might favor the
zinc smelters is that the War Indus
tries Board may monkey with things
that ought to be let alone. But as
Stunning that Washington displays
common sense and keeps its hands
off, there is no need to waste SYM
patty on the zinc smelters in their
present plight. They made great pro-
fits in 1876, they knew Cat any
rate they were told) what was going
to happen, and if some of them have
had to throw away their plants the
high prices represented precisely that
contingency and the market offered
the amortization in advance. How
ever, this is cold comfort to many
smelters who are permanently in
business and are now disappointed
and perplexed, Them we advise to
forget the past and turn their eyes to
the future. With the enormous smelt-
ing capacity that we now possess,
with the competition of the electricity
tic producers, and with so many of
the galvanizers making their own
spelter, the idea of other shelters
ought to be to increase the consump-
ton of spelter by developing new use
for it.
Oucct AIIIC tic hcuch
1.-THE one great field for increasing
the use of spelter is in sheet zinc. 1t
has been notorious during the last 20
years that while very large part of
the spelter of Europe has been rolled
the United States has so treated only
a small part of its product. Perhaps
we cannot use too much sheet zinc for
roofing in this country; perhaps our
conditions may not be favorable to
that; but certainly we can put zinc
sheets and rods, light and heavy, to
many more uses than at present and
now is the time, prominently the
time, to do it. For, with surplus Of
plants and of smelter men, reflected
in the relatively low price of spelter
we are in a position to substitute
sheet zinc for other sheet metals, es-
pecially tin plate and copper, that are
in deficient supply.
ut is well known that the Germans,
who are short of copper and tin, have
done this. We ought to do likewise
and even more extensively, for we
shall continue to make and use many
things that the Germans have been
compelled to dispense with. Let any
body observe the articles in everyday
use that are made of sheet metal for
which zinc might be substituted
covers of containers, cans, buttons,
gas and electric fixtures, hardware
trimmings, buckles, to mention but a
few of the hundreds of things that
will be noted by one who opens his
eyes. Consider also the multitude Of
things for which cast zinc might be
used as well as cast brass.
''This is the way that zinc smelters
ought to be thinking. It is interest
ing that the New Jersey Zinc Com
pany, which is now building a rolling
mill, is probably thinking this way.
There ought to be more rolling mills,
more competition in the sheet zinc
business and the rollers should unite
In n y,roDaOauda IN increase the use