No better illustration of the main facts about copper can be found than the condition of the industry to-day, in 1905.
The metal is now fifteen and a half cents per pound, and the consumption so great that the price still advances, yet if through an agreement among the producing mines this sales-rate should be dropped twenty-five per cent., it would so increase consumption as to force back the price to a point that would again discourage consumption; and yet in the old mines the cost of producing the metal sold at fifteen and a half is but six to seven and a half cents, in some even lower.
Compare these conditions with those existing in the steel industry.
Therein unlawful combinations and unnatural restrictions are essential if those engaged would show a gross profit of even fifteen per cent. on their gross output. If more than fair or going returns are earned, then new capital flows into competition and the surplus again shrinks to an uninviting point. The same is true in wheat, corn, and cotton—big prices invite fresh investments and the planting of broader acreage.
Hence the sorry spectacle of the cotton planter who, in 1905, will receive no more for his twenty per cent. increased crop, coming from over two millions increased acreage planted last year, than for his smaller one of the year before.
Para que mis lectores comprendan rápida y definitivamente el punto que deseo señalar, ilustraré con un ejemplo:
El Trust del Acero hizo en 1904 un volumen de negocios bruto de 432.000.000 de dólares, sobre el cual obtuvo un beneficio de 71.400.000 dólares, y sin embargo esta vasta cantidad representaba solo un cinco por ciento sobre el capital inflado del trust de unos 1.400.000.000 de dólares; y como el «Sistema», al regular la capitalización, dispuso que las acciones preferentes (y los bonos), que representaban el beneficio del «Sistema»,