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Show SCARCITY OF COPPER WILL SHORTEN WAR Germany's Willingness to Pay Double Market Price Shows Situation. One of the achieven ents of the allies which Is going to contribute materially toward s ortening the war aocording to the London Financial News is the cut ting off of Germany s external supplies of copper She has in the Mansfeld mines certain Inter al resources, but they are not adequate to meet the ka ser s enormous requirements He discovers his ordinary comn erclal needs already Stan ed that armament demands nay be fed and eveu they ha e to put up w tl s ort commons. That the strain is even at th s con para lvely early stage getting acute, ts sufficiently proved by w Ungness of Ger many to paj double the market price But the me al is of course treated as contraband b the all es and they have even led up ships conveying cargoes between neutral countr es when it was 1 kelj ter contents would reach the enemj Germanv used to be the largebt customer of the United States This embargo benefits the allies In sev eral ways It insures that supplies of the metal wll be amp e and the price not unreasonable In one respect th s has created somewhat of a phenomenon In the history of war requ reraents and alues In war cr ses vh le most peop e suffer the ontractor for war mater al of a 1 sorts flour hes Yet the producer of copper an ind pensab e requ rement of combata ts is t e on y one who has fa led to p oflt huge y by the present conftlc Since the end of Julj standard has actually dec ned on balance 2 5s per ton, and though now at 54 6s has been in the interval 3 16s lower while compared with a year ago it is 12 10s down The mont end figures Issued by Henry R. Merton & Co show t e statist cal po s tion from this po nt of view is exceed 1 tngly strong S ockB In Eng and and Prance 26 600 ton" increased 4300 tons s nee July notwithstanding consumption in the Inter enlng per od. This is taking the q antlt in France in the absence of later returns as unchanged tnoug it Is not Improbable that stores at Havre have been augmented Stocks at Ham burg and Bre nen are st 11 shown at 4000 tons figures last obta nab e but no doubt this amount has before now been used Rotterdam s ocks a e 1200 tons or 1700 tons less than at the beginning of August so even if Germany could get hold of the metal n Hoi and t would not apprec ably re eve her necessities. Tota visible supp y Is now 35 700 tons an advance of 2100 tons since the end of Jul The smal er inc ease com ared with stocks is due to a lessening of sh p ments from Chi e and Austra a, owing to recent acti ty of enemy commerce de stroye s in Pacific and Ind an oceans but w th routes in those waters now pract ca y assured that will soon read Just Itse f Con pared with a year ago v sib e supi ly is 8900 tons h gher Lx ports fron the states to Europe during I e last four months total 71 900 tons agjjnst 126 200 tons for the correspond tng period of 1913 The dec e roughli represents the an ount Germany would otherwise la e taken m nus the extra quantity we and probably certain neutral co tries ha e ob a ned Consigi nents from Aust a la and Chi e ha e aggregat ed In t e same Ime 17 700 tons or 9-100 tons less tba last jear The sltuat on tl en from whatever point of v ew Is fa orable to the a 1 es Possibly the ow p ce may br ng about some br ef s ackenlng n output In the states but it Is scarcely like y there wi be any shutt ng down to such degree that the quotat on can be forced high. An erl can Coppe Producers assoc at on has ceased to publ sh figures of stocks s nee the outbreak of war but th s step Is he d to have been dictated by market reasons Probability is that refiner es contl ue ha d at work o stocks and t at t ere Is no 1 Kel hood of any short age de elop ng Steady improvement In the ndust al s tuation In Amer ca Itself is a qu te ample justification for assu-n ing suppl es wi 1 not be allowed to get too low And so far as this Is good for the states, it is good also for the al les. |
