Mohave County miner., 1917-01-20

now, provided they are willing to take on the business; if they do, the min ing companies will find a much larger demand for their output.
 In taking up this new business at that time there will be available over here the mines, the mills, the men, and, for that matter, the money. It therefore is a question to what extent the American manufacturers will be willing to seek out this business.
 For the period of the war and until the peace treaty is signed there will be urgent demands for all the copper that can be produced, and for months thereafter the demand will continue, perhaps not so inssitently as now and at a lower level of price; but if there should be any very great drop in the price the mining companies, having learned their lesson in the early months of the war and having dem onstrated that production can be re- duced without increase in cost, will no doubt resort to the same expedient as was then found to work so advantage ously and bring their output to a level with the demand.
 There can be no doubt that business in large volume, requiring large ton nages of copper, has been held up in this country because of the scarcity of copper and other things entering into construction which could not be had without regard to price, and also quite some business has been held up be- cause of the high level of prices. This business is sure to come along in time and in large volume because of it hay ing been deferred and because of the large amount of money that will be available for investment when more normal conditions are restored.
 It will have been noted that only 100, 100000 pounds per annum of new production has been available to the central powers from mines in those countries. A comparison of that in- significant tonnage with the tonnage available for the allies and contract ed for by them opens up the very nat ural question as to how the central powers have managed to get along, and there is but one answer, namely, that they must have cleaned up every pound of copper in every shape which was to be had and wherever it was to be obtained without regard to conse- quences.
 This all has a bearing on the quan- tity of copper that will be required after the war by the central powers for the purpose of replacement in ev- cry line of industry, notably the tele- graph and telephone companies; the railway companies; the electric light and power companies, and for all of the endless purposes copper in times of peace can be and must be used.
 In production of the 1O0,OOO,0OO pounds of copper within the territory of the central powers it will no doubt be found that mines have been oper- ated without regard to cost or fu- ture operation, and that they cannot and will not continue to produce any such tonnage. Some of them undoubt- edly will have to stop and the pro- duction from all of them will be large ly reduced.
 The situation at the end of the war will therefore be, so far as the central powers are concerned, that they will have, comparatively speaking, no sup ply of their own production available and they must enter the market as urgent purchasers for shipment as rapidly as steamer room can be had.
 It must be remembered that the central powers having to depend on this country for most of their copper will have to wait to get the room for it on steamers sailing from this side, get it to their home ports; get it from the steamers into their factories in the interior, stock up their factories prior to starting them going, and this all means that a vast tonnage of the metal must be purchased in this coun- try and started on it's way to Europe and stocked up in all of the plants over there before the requirement at that end can begin to be taken care of.
 In the year 1913 there was shipped to Germany and Austria more than 5O0,OO0,OO0 pounds of copper, and if to that quantity, required in peace times, there is added the quantity needed in restoring the steady stream of the metal going from this side with an allowance of several weeks to get it into the plants; restocking those