News and Views

Abstract

IN his recent presidential address to the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy on “Periodical Variations in the Prices of Minerals and Metals”, Mr. James G. Lawn pointed out that variations in the price of minerals and metals over short periods of years affect the mining engineer very closely and bring numerous difficulties in their train. Many efforts have been made, therefore, to secure the stabilisation of such prices, and this of necessity generally means control over supply, since the demand side cannot be so easily regulated. Sometimes, however, successful efforts have been made to stimulate demand; the most notable example being that of nickel. After the War the demand for nickel fell off rapidly, but as a result of research and propaganda, the producers were able to obtain the absorption of their whole output for commercial purposes and later on to increase considerably the consumption. Control over supply can sometimes be effected where known deposits capable of profitable working are limited in number and extent. In other cases, metallurgical difficulties in extracting a marketable product afford a basis for control. In the former category would fall diamonds, nickel, cobalt, potash, and nitrate, and in the latter, aluminium and magnesium. In the diamond mining industry, everyone connected with it, whether in South Africa, Congo Territory, Angola, or West Africa, recognises the necessity of control, and, despite many ups and downs in the trade, prices have been maintained for forty years. In the production of cobalt, an agreement between the producers in Ontario and Katanga to supply a half share each has maintained the price at 10s. per lb. Aluminium ores are plentiful, but since metallurgical treatment of the ores is costly the business is in comparatively few hands and control has been secured by agreement for some eighteen years.