NATIONALISATION OF COPPER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1665, 23 January 1917, Page 4

NATIONALISATION OF COPPER.

The Australian Metal Exchange has been informed that the Imperial Government has assumed the entire control of the buying and selling of copper. This, doubtless, is the first fruits of the appointment by the British Board of Trade of a Metal Trade Department Committee, of which Sir Gerard A. Muntz is the chairman. This committee was empowered to consider the position of lead, copper, tin, and other non-fer-rous metals; and to report on any steps that it considered necessary to safeguard the position. It is interesting to note that whereas the average price of standard copper cast the day before war was declared was £s(l 12s fid, the latest price cabled before the Government took this revolutionary step was £133 ss; while in 1916 the highest price touched was £145. As might have been expected in view of the extreme prices that are now obtainable for this metal, producers, and more particularly those operating in neutral countries like the United Slates, where (he war has not entirely disorganised the labour market, have developed their output with all possible speed. If is estimated on reliable authority that the American production reached 828,fiOO tohs last year, an increase of no less than 32.2 per cent.; and this despite the fact that the Central Powers, in the past great users of copper, are no longer in the market. Of course, American consumption has also increased very markedly since the war. It is estimated, taking the world as a whole, that the output of (his metal for last year was 1,208,000 tons, against 1,050,000 tons in 1915! and that the producers of the United States alone in 1916 received over 100 millions sterling for their product. Producers in the Commonwealth have already secured large contracts from the British-Government.