Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1892 — The Structural Iron Trust. [ARTICLE]

The Structural Iron Trust.

The combination which eleven manufacturers of structural iron and steel had so long and successfully maintained for the purpose of exacting an abnormally high price from consumers of j rolled beams and channels came to an end during the past week, and the effect was manifest in a sudden drop in the price of beams from 3.1 cents to 2.4 cents per pound, or from $62 to S4B per net ton. There is promise of still lower prices, as,, members of the late pool are reported as offering to sell beams at any figure above 2 cents per pound. The product of the eleven concerns in the combination amounted to about 120,000 net tons last year, so that the saving to consumers by the decline that has already taken place is at the rate of not less than $1,680,000 per year. Inasmuch as crude steel now costs the manufacturers something less than $25 per ton, there is still a very comfortable margin left for the beam and channel manufacturers at S4B, or even S4O, per net ton. Although the cost of rolling beams is considerably above the cost of making rails, the members of the steel rail combination are entirely satisfied with the profits yielded from rails at S3O per ton. The disruption of tho beam combinas tion is due to several causes, chief among which was the refusal of Carnegie, Phipps <k Co. (limited) to accept the allotment of business*awarded to them in the distribution by the combination. Mr. Carnegie’s firm has recently built a large mill for rolling beams at Homestead, near Pittsburg, which is said to have capacity for producing all the beams required in this country; and when the allotment to this mill was presented to Mr. Carnegie for his approval he refused to accept it and withdrew from the pool—a step which he is credited with having long meditated. Another cause for tho collapse was the dissatisfaction of the Illinois Steel Company with the price fixed by tho combination. To meet the competition of outside mills, and prevent further importation of foreign beams, the combination had decided to reduce the price to 2.8 cents per pound; but the Illinois Steel Company desired that a further reduction should be made, to which other members would not agree. The large importations of German and Belgian beams, which can be laid down at the seaboard for about 2.3 cents per pound, have cut into the trade of members of the combination very heavily of late. It is estimated that 12,000 to 15,000 tons of foreign beams have been imported at Atlantic ports within a few months, and good authority places the stock of foreign beams in Boston at present at about 2,500 tons. The prospect of permanently low prices for beams and channels is not altogether satisfactory. The opinion is freely expressed in tho iron trade that the free competition which has been precipitated by the collapse of the pool may be followed sooner or later by a new combination, in which Mr. Carnegie would come in for such a share pf the business as he might choose to dictate. So long as manufacturers in this country shall have such an incentive to oombination as is offered by tho tariff of $lB a net ton on structural shapes there is the strongest encouragement to combine and plunder the people to the utmost of their ability. The beam combination was a creation of the tariff; and so long as the duty on foreign material shall remain at the present high figure the American manufacturers cannot be expected to permit the opportunity for plunder to remain unimproved. There is now before Congress a bill that proposes a reduction of the duty on structural shapes to $5 per ton. It Is hardly possible that this bill will become a law; but it would go tar toward correcting a long unrestrained evil. Philadelphia Record.