managed by the shrewdest business skill of France, does what it intends to do, and its tributary producers are faithful to their contracts, for ten years to come, yes, for all years to come—for it is not likely that an enterprise of such golden returns will ever be abandoned if it can once profitably be carried out,—the world must pay for its copper whatever these monopolists demand.
Probably the argument against the private ownership and control of the wealth which nature has stored up for the whole world's use was never brought home to men's minds so forcibly as it has been by the acts of these French speculators. Copper is a necessity to the industries of civilized society; and the mind of every unprejudiced person protests against the injustice of placing in the hands of any single firm or combination the power to exact such prices as they choose for the great staples of human consumption. This increase of price of about 7 cents per pound is a tax which affects, directly or indirectly, every person in the civilized world. Let us inquire what becomes of this tax. Perhaps 2 cents per pound will go into the pockets of the Frenchmen who have engineered the combination, a sum which will give them, if we set the annual consumption of copper at 400,000,000 pounds, a comfortable net income of about $8,000,000 per annum. The lion's share of the profits is taken by the producers, however; who, if 10 cents is the price at which copper would sell if free competition were in force, are receiving under the present contract with the Société about 5 cents per pound as a reward for their co-operation in its monopolistic scheme.2
It is appropriate here, too, to make reference to the enormous profits which the owners of the copper mines of the country are receiving, apart from the special influence of this great syndicate. The richest and most valuable copper mines in the world lie on the southern shore of Lake Superior. The Calumet and Hecla Company, which works one of the richest deposits of native copper ever found, has a capital stock of $2,500,000, on which it has paid, since 1870, $30,000,000 in dividends.