The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-05-21 00:00:00

THE IRON TRADE.

WoLVERHAMPTON, Irednesthey.

The market to-day was quiet alike in the pig-
iron and finished iron departments, but prices
remained strong at recent quotations in both.
Best hematite pigs were in demand in small lots,
but they were not easy to get, even at maker's
terms of £3 17a 6d per ton. Consumers corn-
loudly at the high rates charged for this
commodity ; big they anticipate no relief so long
as the demand keeps so great for the brand to
be used in steel rail making at home and abroad.
The price of hematite, and the quotation for the
best claystone iron of this part of the kingdom,
keeps quctations at first-class houses for top
qualities firm at association list, namely, for
marked bars, £8; best bars, £9; aheets, £9
, lOs ; doubles, £ll ; nail sheets, £9; latten,ll2
l&s; boiler plates, £9 ills; rods, £8; hoops,
£9; and gas strip, £8 10s—all at the works.
Very much the larger proportion of iron going
away is, however, selling at under these prices,
the range varying chiefly with the cost of the
pigs used. Much satisfaction was expressed to.
day at the Gloucester and Berkeley New Dock
scheme having passed the House of Lords.

Though the condition of the staple industry
of Dili district is still very far front sharing the
activity of other ironfivids, it is graduahy and
perceptibly improving. Nearly all firms of good
standing are hotter off for:)rders than they were
a few weeks ago, and the inquiries on account
of Canada sad America promise an early and
substantial accession of business. In the neigh-
bourhood of Dudley the rule is now five turns a
seek, and :tt most of the works throughout tho
district, the hands are making a turn more in
the week than lately reported. Perhaps the best

indication of progress is the steady increase in
the production of pig-iron, which is all the more
significant from the fact of the rapid exhaustion
of native ironstone. According to an authentic
return, published on Thursday, there are now
104 furnaces in blast in South Staffordshire, as
against 97 two years ago; and as the tendency
of late has been to erect furnaces of larger
clipacity, these figures probably give but an in-
stdcquate idea of the increase of production. It
is satisfactory to find, notwithstanding the great
modern development of the North of England,
West Coast, Welsh, and Scotch districts, that
the active furnaces of this district still represent
a good sixth of the total produce of the king-
dom. At the weekly meeting, on Thursday, at
Birmingham, there was again a good attendance,
and a fair average amount of business was done
in merchant iron. Pig-iron transactions are
never very numerous at these markets, but prices
ire well maintained. Native all-mine pig is
quoted £3l7s fid, and other sorts proportionately
high. Hematites are much sought after, though
prices are too high to allow of much business.
For local manufacturing purposes there is a
good demand for bars, wire and bed iron, gas
tubes, strips, plates, and angles, and hoops for
tie iron for Lancashire are taken in considerable
quantities.