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Show COPPER PRODUCTION. Copper consumption is the biggest big-gest in the history of the world and yet the mines in the United States are faced with the alternative alterna-tive of closing down or exhausting exhaust-ing their lesources without profit to the immense investment that had been made in them. Many companies passed their dividends and a determined drive for a protective pro-tective tariff has been started. The cause is the opening up of the immense im-mense deposits in South America tin -'Africa, which can produce copper so cheaply that it can be sold in the American market at about half the production costs of most of the mines located in North America. One North American producer pro-ducer protected itself by buying the largest of the South American properties, but the metal produced there is just as much of a market factor, whether one interest owns it or another. A reduction of production to balance bal-ance consumption would be quite as effective as a tariff, and probably proba-bly more so, but there is the diffi- culty of getting together. Already some of the mines have reduced their output and the copper surplus sur-plus was reduced by at least 10,-000,000 10,-000,000 pounds in March. Last month shipments into foreign and ; domestic consumption are variably i estimated at from 230,000,000 to 240,000,000 pounds, wmcn compares with the record of 234,000,000 pounds in February, while refinery production is estimated at something some-thing like 220,000,000 pounds. It |