Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1892 — The Steel Rail Trade. [ARTICLE]

The Steel Rail Trade.

In reviewing the steel rail trade for 1891 a prominent high-tariff trade journal says: “The past year has been a quiet period In the steel rail trade, but the year has been marked by at least one event of great importance, namely, the removal of the most formidable antagonist of the rail combination. As the result of longcontinued negotiations, which several times threatened to miscarry, the Scranton Steel Company was consolidated with the Lackawanna Coal and Iron Company last spring, and the actuating spirits of the Scranton Company were placed beyond power of opposing the combination fora period of ten years. It eost a nice snug sum to do this, but it was evidently considered as worth what it cost. “One year ago the rail trade was in a disorganized and demoralized condition. The combination was in a state bordering on collapse, and rails were selling at S2B per ton at Eastern mills, with a slow market. It took two or three months to dispose of the Scranton Steel Company and straighten matters out, and then all was plane sailing, with S3O as the fixed and unalterable price. Until within the past three months, irade has been very quiet, but the last quarter brought liberal purchases by the leading railroads, and the trade may now be regarded as in a very satisfactory condition, considering the low price of pig iron and the very fair price of rails.” When the duty on rails was reduced in 1890, from sl7 to $13.44 per ton, some of the manufacturers pretended to be alarmed at the prospect of English competition coming in to cut down the large profits they were making. A representative of Andrew Carnegie’s steel rail mill told a newspaper reporter that if the domestic rail makers were to hold distant ports of the home market, like Texas and the Pacific States, no reduction in the duty could be made. The protective duty of sl7 a ton, he claimed, was none too much. But the duty was cut down to $13.44, and what was the result? Was the rail trust hurt? On the contrary, it went on with its old game of putting up prices, just as if nothing had happened. This they could well do, as the duty is still out of all proportion to the actual difference between the cost of making rails here and in England.