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Show COPPER PRODOCERS 1 FMSFIED Increased Freight Urged as One Reason for Further Fur-ther Advance. There has been a f i ::-- price of -Z1'? f-euts a. pound tor copper since the first of J une. a ys the Boston N';ws Luiv-a u-j u-j ('nor u that time and ijbM;ueiit to Sep-I Sep-I i ember of last year this pri'-e. had prevailed pre-vailed by agreement between the government, gov-ernment, and the producers. At the present pres-ent time no agreement exists and producers produc-ers ha ve reserved for lh.eiu.se Ives tho right of opening up again the price question. ques-tion. Wh 2ti the situation heca me acute in copper last fail a committee of producers produc-ers met government re pre,.-n ta lives a nd the result was an agreed price of So1.- cents for a stated period to govern a!l transactions in the metal. Again, in January, following another conference ot like character, the price was mutually agreed upon, although not without en-dea en-dea v ors on the part of the prod ucers to have advancing costs met by a higher quoi ation. The war industries hoard had determined deter-mined that there should be no change in price, and producers were not i fied to this offer-1 following a conference held late last month. To date, however, producers pro-ducers have not agreed to this or any oilier price, although they will continue to supply copper to the government at the former quotation. In fixing the price from June I the war industries hoard named August 15 as the date when a new arrangement should he entered upon. Producers will meet the war indus tries board for another conference on August 7, prior to which time preliminary prelimi-nary meetings will doubtless be held. A new and important factor has arisen since the May gathering in the freight rate advance which will add more than a cent to the cost of producing every pound of copper. Great stress will be laid upon this new condition in arguing for highor copper prices. Through federal trade commission examiners ex-aminers the war industries board keeps its own records of copper costs. In so far as naked operating costs go the producers pro-ducers and examiners agree, but from that point a divergence occurs, having to do principally with depreciation, ob- , solescence and Vepletion. . i |