Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1882 — IRON AND STEEL. [ARTICLE]

IRON AND STEEL.

The Depression Caused by Overproduction. The Situation Probably Not So Bad a* Represented. A number of iron and steel mills in all /arts of the country are to close down within a month or two for reasons which may be div.ded into two classes: first, the depression in the iron and steel traffic; and, second, the anticifxtionof free-trade legislation on the part of the next Congress. As to the latter consideration, Judge Keliey, of Pennsylvania, says that the next session of Congress can not extend beyond seventy days, a»d that even were the Committee on W ys and Means disposed to refo< m the tariff it w >uld be an impossibility to get a bill *ni ough n the time that would be left alter dispo ing ot the appropriation bills and the i undre ot measures that will necessarily en umber the Spe keris table. In reference t»the de r ssion n the business Ethan A. Hitchcock, Pre -i dent of the St Louis Ore and Ste 4 Company, says: The price of steel rails has fallen from S6O to $45 per ton, tad pig ir n on y trout $25.5 Jto $24. The fall in st el rails was due, he said, to overptod action. In one year the estimated capacity o J the steel mills of the United States bad increased 9J0,t00 tons. The probable demand for n xt year would be about 1,000,000 to I*, as against a possible outputof 2,150,00 J tons. If .he demand should prove to be 50 per cent of the capacity, all the mills could not work full time. Ana the probability was that nexG year there would be but litt e railroad build ng, and rails would be neededfor reconstruction and repair alone. G.oomy apprehensions are entertained by other firms. The manager of the Bethleh m (Pa.) Iron and Steel Works says the materials produced at his works are about as low as they c m go, and the outlook is a dull one. Gen. Lilly, of Mauch Chunk, says the business outloo < is gloomy, orders given for bar iron having been countermanded in a large number of instances, and there being uncertainty on all sides. The President of the Thomas Iron Company, in Pennsylvania, reports a similar condit.on of things at Catasaqua and Hokendauqua. The large works of the Lackawanna Company, ot Scranton, Pa, have shortened their time schedule. The laborers throughout the Lehigh valley are anxious about the future. These apprehensions are not shared, however, by all the manufacturers. The Tyrone (Pa.) forges resume operations next week, and will run on full time In Coatesville, Pa., though the proprietors consider the outlook gloomy, all the mills are busy and plenty of orders are on hand. The output of the Edgar Thompson steel works, Pittsburgh, has been reduced to two-thirds of their capacity, and the company say that among the manufacturers the question is the survival of the fittest, or, rather, the fattest pocket. They dbuld sell at $42 a ton if they could get coke and ore and wages down, but had never gone below $45. In Bridgeton, N. J., the iron foundries are very busy. The Cleveland (Ohio) rolling-mills are not to be shut down, and the Bay View works, near Milwaukee, which have not made any steel rails for some time and shut down the iron-rail mill three weeks ngo, will not be affected except through the sympathy inevitable to all lines of the iron business. The North Chicago, the Union Iron and Steel mills, the Joliet and the Vulcan mill of St Louis are still running, but will have a conference with their hands about Jan. 1 relative to wages for the ensuing year, when the employers will probably d mand a decrease of from 20 to 25 per cent, on present rates The trouble is attributed in Chicago to the Scranton company, which cut pr.ces from $45 to $42 a ton, since which time sales have been made at S4O, the price at which they are now quoted in Eastern circulars, and at which the President of tue Union Iron and Steel Company says they cannot be made here.

A Philadelphia di?p tch says: Thorough Inquiy all over the city and in all th* leading man it act urin ■ <ente a of tne State co not warrant the opinion tha t the iron and steel trade a in as had condition as has been represented. Indeed, James M. 8* ank, the Secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association, and one of the best-informed me i in the country, said to-day: “It has been gre nly exaggerated. Tae steel-rail industry is in a very depressed condition, and thed mandf roth rir n and steel products is not equal to the expectations of a few months ago, b t there is no occasion for a-iy excitement or alarm. Prices have been gradually declining since last spring; there nas been no sudden decline, not even in steel rails. Ido not believe that the present Congress, nor <he Congress which has just been elected, will be so unwise as greatly to reduct the duties upon iron and steel, and hence I feel entirely "hopeful of the future of those industries. Low prices are not necessarily an evil " A Washington dispatch states that it is believed there “by many Congressm n and . others who favor a revision of the tariff laws that the sensational reports of a general suspension of steel production are designed to influence Congress against any reduct on of the enormous measure Oi protection which the iron and steel interests already enjoy. Indications are not lacking io show that there is a good deal of , method and system in the attempt to (lighten the country into the conviction that nothing short of a prohibitory tariff will prevent a trenecal collapse oc the iron aud steel manufactories of the United States. 1 *