Dr. F. H. Thomson's Historical Notes of Copper Smelting. 337 



ones indigenous to this country is of course a great bar to any indepen- 

 dent smelting operations by the miner ; and if any such attempt were 

 to be made in Swansea, the smelting corporation would lower the price 

 of copper, so that not only would their own, and the works opposed to 

 them, suffer, but the mining interest generally, especially that class 

 producing ores of a poor quality. 



Many will urge that this suicidal course would in time cure itself, 

 and tire even the patience of the smelter ; but the plan has been, on 

 more than one occasion, carried out, to the utter ruin of many smelting 

 establishments who started, led away by the great profits derived by 

 the smelter. 



A temporary fall in the price of copper under this coercive system 

 is soon rectified, for one house is known to have held nearly half a 

 million of copper bars to force a corresponding rise, when the necessity 

 for depression no longer existed. 



By the present system the smelter has delivered to him 21 cwt. for 

 every ton of ore he purchases. To this may be added the overplus 

 profits of the assay, which is all in his favour, so that the poor miner is 

 at once mulcted in about 15 per cent. 



According to the price of copper in the market, the smelter has 

 a roving profit of from £20 to £30 per ton of copper, enough to 

 tempt the poor miner into the vortex, and oppose small capital to 

 the, combined and determined systematic opposition of the milUonaire 

 smelter. 



When one calculates the quantity smelted by one house, about 5,000 

 to 6,000 tons of copper per annum, and also that the total amount 

 smelted in England was, in 1855, 21,485^ tons, of the value of three 

 millions, it cannot be wondered that all private attempts fail, when 

 brought into competition with the holders of such a capital. 



Of late years many companies have been got up, more especially with 

 the view of getting hold of the foreign ores, easy of reduction by many 

 of the late patents ; but all, with the exception of one or two with large 

 means, have been utterly ruined, and expunged from the trade. A Mr. 

 Benjamin Smith of London erected large works at Bow Common 

 some years ago, and so long as his arrangements with foreign houses 

 lasted, all went merry as a marriage bell ; but when he attempted to 

 buy and depend on his supplies from the ore sales, and share the pri- 

 vileges of the English smelters, the screw was pub on. Gradually 

 copper fell and ore rose, till his works, from lack of material, sank to rise 

 no more, and he died, I believe, shortly after. This is one of the many 

 instances that could be adduced of the vast power of this great 

 monopoly. 



