Asa has now elapsed since the Societe de Métaux of Paris began those operations for the control of the copper market which have latterly been carried'on upon an immense scale by the ¢o-called French Syndicate," it will be interesting to see what success has attended this determined attempt to ''corner" one of the great staple commodities. It must be admitted that in some respects the-syndicate has certainly been successful. After uch trouble it succeeded in making biuding arrangements with all the important producers of copper Lhrowghioue the world, which it secured the bulk of the supply of metal. Asa consequence it has been enabled to advance prices to more than double what they were a year ago, and has, no doubt, obtained a considerable profit upon the copper which it has sold to consumers, It must also be remembered that there has been avery great sdyauce in the prices of alleopper shares, and there can be ino doubt that from this the operators in copper have reaped large profits. But, on the other hand, to obtain these results immense liabilities have been incurred and these are constantly accumulating, for although the syndicate has been able to '*corner"™ the supply of metal and to control prices, it has been unable to force consumers to come into the market upon anything like a nor. mal scale, and hence the disparity between supply and demand has constantly become ape with the result that the syndicate now on hund certainly not less than 100,000 tons of copper, while its holdings tons. How the supplies of copper have may possibly amount to 110,000 or 120,000
increased while the deliveries to the trade have diminished can be seen from the fullowing figures, for which we are indebted to Messrs, H. R. Merton and Ca, Total Sep. 1888
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.