The production of most mineral products varies according to the general conditions of business. The demand for iron, as we have seen, is regarded as a good indication of the general trend of business. Among the metals the price of copper is especially subject to fluctua tions. Hence, copper mines often suffer periods of stagnation and the stock of copper companies is a favorite among stock market manipu lators. Of late petroleum has been the most variable of all the main mineral products, both in the amount of production in any given area and in the price of the stock of its companies. Variations in mineral production have a great effect not only on the local population, but upon financial centers through fluctuations in dividends, in the price of stock and in the calls for new investments. The price of mineral products often determines how active many kinds of factories shall be.
Many fluctuations in mineral production arise from causes outside the general conditions of business. For example, the seasonal character of the coal business works much harm in this greatest of all mineral industries. Although industrial consumers create a demand for coal all the year, they burn more in the winter than the summer, not only because of the low temperature but because the busy season is more apt to come in winter. In the United States, domestic users, who consume about 120,000,000 tons per year against 180,000,000 by manu facturers, 125,000,000 by railroads, and 10,000,000 by steamships, provide an extremely seasonal market. Hence, the miners often work only part time. They have struck more than once in order to assure themselves at least thirty hours of work per week and wages enough in that time to enable them to support their families. They would work full, time at lower hourly wages, if they were sure of full time work all the year. One remedy for this lies in storing coal during the dull season. With proper machinery the cost of putting it into storage and taking it out again is only ten to fifteen cents a ton. Such storage would reduce the cost of mining, free labor for other industries, and help the railroads. At present the railroads require an unnecessarily large equipment because there is a great demand for coal cars in the autumn while many are idle in the spring. The coal trains require engines and crews just when the crops also make great demands. In coal mining, , more than in most businesses, one of the greatest needs is to overcome the effect of the seasons and create a uniform flow of business. The great difficulties of West Virginia in education, in public safety, and in other respects would be distinctly helped if the coal miners had steady work at fair wages all the year.
Another very serious type of fluctuation in the coal business arises from the fact that in no other industry are strikes so frequent, so wide spread, and so prolonged. Here is the record of strikes in the bituminous
coal mines of the United States for thirteen years: The record indicates an average loss of about $125 per miner in wages each year, or one-sixth of the average income. The great coal strike of 1922 is estimated to have cost the miners about $50,000,000 per month in wages, the operators about $30,000,000 per month, and the general public another huge sum.
In no other state is the percentage of miners so high as in West Virginia, and nowhere else are serious strikes so common. During the present century there has been almost a state of civil war several times when the mine owners, through their private police organizations, have struggled with the miners.
The fluctuations due to the exhaustion of supplies are in the long run ? far more dangerous than any other fluctuations in mineral production. Fortunately this does not yet apply to coal, iron, aluminum, stone, clay, and lime. It applies, however, to most of the other metals and rarer mineral products. Abandoned copper, lead, and zinc mines can be counted by the score in various parts of the world; old gold dredging operations in California have left certain river valleys a mere waste of gravel. The world would probably soon use hundreds of times the present supply of platinum, tungsten and other rare minerals, if the supply were abundant. The scarcity of many minerals was especially emphasized during the Great War. For example, the United States is the largest user of chromite, but is not normally a large producer. In 1913 the domestic production was only 230 tons, or less than half of 1 per cent of the normal consumption of 65,000 tons, used mainly for special kinds of steel, for tanning leather and for refractory brick and furnace lining. By developing small deposits, the United States raised its production to nearly 84,000 tons in 1918, an amount almost equal to the imports of that year. But a few years of use on such a scale would much deplete the better deposits. Chromite is simply one of many minerals which have a great and growing value, but which appear to exist only in such small quantities that a century or two of exploitation like that which is now going on would practically exhaust them. No one who has any regard for the future can fail to feel the imperative need of careful conservation. It is not surprising that after the Great War no problems were harder to solve than those centering around rights to mineral wealth. A possible step toward the solution of some of these problems is thought by many people to lie in the growing movement toward vesting all mineral rights in the general public, while allowing and encouraging private enterprises to develop the minerals.