HARD TIMES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19840, 14 May 1927, Page 7

HARD TIMES

; AUSTRALIAN COPPER Industry Has Serious Financial Problems to Face EFFECT OF FALL IN PRICES [By Telegraph—Per Press Assn.—Copyright.] Received Mav 13, 8.40 p.m. (A. & N.Z.) SYDNEY, May 13. Giving evidence before the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, Mr Murray, general manager of the Mount Lyall Mining Company, said that since 1921 the copper industry in Australia had been in a perilous condition owing to the serious fall in the price of copper on the world’s markets. For the past six years, he said, prices had actually been lower than the prewar price, in spite of the fact that cost of production had materially advanced owing to the increased cost of materials, higher wages and shorter hours. Mount Lyall copper sold in Australia commanded a price higher than the world’s market price. the company would have been unable to continue operations. The cost of production to-day was actually higher than the present market price. The direct effect of these r.-c conditions had been that all f icipal copper producers in Aust excepting the Mount Lyal Company, had been obliged to go out of business. Mount Lyall was able to survive only by the expenditure of large sums, introducing the most up-to-date machinery and efficient mining treatment methods . The company could not carry the burden of any further increase in wages or a decrease in working hours, neither of which was justified or called‘'tfor.