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Show OUR MINING INDUSTRY Organization of the Western States Chamber of Commerce Metals Association, which took place in Silver City last Thursday Thurs-day at a meeting of delegations from communities which have been hard hit by drastically curtailed cur-tailed mining operations, wis a good thing. The chamber of commerce delegations del-egations were composed of business busi-ness men. They know how their communities suffer when mining operation are curtailed, resulting result-ing in laying off hundreds of men and a depression of business generally. The Times is not in a position to say whether domestic metals prices should he stabilized along with farm prices, but this newspaper news-paper insists that mining is one of the basic industries in our country and that it should he given very serious consideration by the federal government. Grant county in New Mexico, and Bisbee, Douglas, Globe-Miami and Clifton-Morenci in Arizona Ari-zona have been hit in the last few weeks, or they are in fear of drastic curtailments. That is no small matter in the economy of the entire Southwest. Surely, the Congressional delegations dele-gations from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, California, Wyoming, Montana, Michigan and those from other states which profit directly or indirectly in-directly through the mining in-ciustry, in-ciustry, are strong enough in Washington to see that a tariff on foreign produced copper, zinc and lead is reimposed. The United States is, and should be, friendly with metals-producing metals-producing countries in South America. But our government simply could not afford to keep South American mines in operation opera-tion while those in our own western west-ern states are forced to close. It is probable that mining operations op-erations in the West and Southwest South-west will not be resumed to the extent that they were during and immediately following the war. It would not be sound economy to keep on producing copper, zinc and lead to such an extent if there were not a sufficient market mar-ket for those metals. The government govern-ment should go as far as it can in stockpiling those metals at a fair price. By all means it should use domestic metals for that purpose pur-pose and not foreign-produced metals. Mining is a powerful industry in our part of the country. Our delegations in Congress should realize that and do ah they can for the mining industry.1 El Paso Times of July 9 |
