THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1906. THE COPPER OUTLOOK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8317, 21 December 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1906. THE COPPER OUTLOOK.

Will the world's supply of copper be equal to the demands soon to be put upon it? This important question is raised in an article in the American Review of Reviews, in which all the known fields are passed in review, and an attempt made to estimate the world's needs in the near future. At present the United States is the largest producer of copper (65 to 70 per cent, of the world's supply), and the freest consumer of it. Copper mines in other countries are becoming exhausted, and American mines are yielding more and more every year. Europe is now as dependent on American copper as she is on American cotton; while her annual bill for American copper was only £160,000 a generation ago, it will be £20,000,000 before 1910, at the present rate of expansion. Copper is one of the most accurate barometers of trade, and the romance of copper is said to be as intense as the romance of gold. It is the great increase in the application of electricity to industrial uses that is largely responsible for the greater demand for copper. Sixty-five per cent, of the total consumption of the metal is by the electrical interests, and as /it is obvious that electricity as a factor in industry has only just begun to be developed, the next few years will see either an enormous increase in output, or a considerable rise in price. Our own telephone extensions i and proposed utilisation of water power are typical of what is going on in electrical extension all over the world. Every battleship built requires over 1,000,0001b of the very best copper, and every "sby-scraper" car-loads of the metal. Only 7 per cent, of the industrial maehineryjof the United States is run by electricity to-day, and the doubling of this rate in the next few years would mean an enormously increased consumption of copper. Although science is doing its utmost in improv-

ing processes of recovery, the outlook is said to be none too promising. Every country is now being examined for deposits, and there is as much solid satisfaction among manufacturing interests in the opening of a vein of virgin copper as in the discovery of a new goldfield. One corporation spends £IOO,OOO yearly in exploration work alone, and so far has obtained nothing for its outlay. Just now the manufacturers are turning out every possible ounce, and making huge profits, for copper is up to £lO6, higher than it has been for forty years.