The Cordova daily times., 1919-03-04
TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1919.
DEVELOPMENTS IN COPPER.

The official statement about copper
that was published in Washington last
the revelation of bad situation, but
there was nothing in it that the read
ers of the Journal had not already
had, and there was one slight mis-
statement, viz. with respect to the
fixed price for copper. We may APP
propriately review the main events of
the last three months.
In the first place, let it be clearly
established in the mind that the gov
eminent never fixed the price for cop.
per in the sense that it named a price
at which all business should be done.
What it did was to fix maximum,
first 1914 cents, and later &c cents,
above which producers might not go.
Producers being unwilling on any day
up to December l, 1918, to sell for
any less, the prices of 23h cents,
and later 26 cents, prevailed as
the market prices. But if at
any time producers had had more cop
per than they could sell at the stip-
ulated maxima, and had desired to
sell, the market price would no longer
have been at the maxima, but would
have been something less. We re-
peatedly drew attention to this dur
ing 1918, urging that the maintenance
of the market at the restrictive maxi
mum indicated that there was not
copper enough.
4 precisely parallel situation as to
high grade zinc Eliminates this. There
was fixed maximum price of II
cents, which prevailed as the market
price so long as the supply waS short,
but upon a liberaliIing of the spoci
tications, letting in new supply Of
high-grade zinc, the market fell below
70 cents overnight, and subsequently
the maximum price ceased to be a fac
tro, though it was always threat.
Manifestly the condition as to cop
per and zinc was quite different from
that Of silver, in Which case the gov
eminent agreed 20 buy the metal at a
certain price. and subsequently estab-
lished conditions equivalent to a
maximum of $l.Ol1s and minimum
of S95s cents. To have had real fix
ing OF the price for copper. something
similar would have had to be done.
On November l, 1918, a previous
agreement between the war Industries
board and the copper producers was
renewed for two moaths, without any
change of terms. On November Is,
1918, new agreement was arranged,
cancelling the previous one. The
agreement of November Is merely
meant that if the government needed
to buy any more copper (Which no.
body anticipated it would) it would
pay 26 cents for it up to December
81, and up to that time the producers
were authorized to enter into an
agreement among themselves ito ask
26 cents from the public and get it II
they could The producers promptly
entered into such an agreement, but
promptly, also, found that tney could
not get the price.
A few thousand tons of copper was
sold during the second half of Novem-
Der to the government and it's allies,
on doubtless what were belatcd ord
ers, and thus established a market
price. From December l to Decem-
Der 81, however, no copper was sold
to anybody, and with the conditions
existing, viz. the producers being
bound to each other not to sell at less
than 26 cents and nobody being will
ing to pay anything like that, there
was neither any market nor could
there be said to be any market price.
With the advent of January the
newly formed export association
named a price of 90 cents for export.
Some of the small producers made
soles at 21@20 cents, and later in the
month as low at 1874 cents. These
sales were sporadic and but email in
the aggregate, the total for the month
being only about 25,OOO,00O pounds.
There was a good deal of vagueness