The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-10-14 00:00:00

THE IRON TRADE.
QUARTERLY MEETING OF IRON.

MASTERS.

WOLVERHAMPTON, Wednesday.

This afternoon the first of the current series
of ironunisters quarterly meetings was held in
Wolverhampton. There was more than an ave-
rage attendance. Sellers and buyers of minerals
and Mon were present from most parts of the
kingdom, and much activity was displayed upon
nearly every hand. Prices of stone, argillaceous
as well as hematite, were very strong; and for
the latter the quotations excevded all former
periods. So high are they that for the choicest
Cumberland ere 81s 61 a too was demanded
to-day, delivered in South Staffordshire. Very
near upon these prices the makers here of first-
class pigs were ready to give, for quantities to
be used as mixtures with qualities of a lees
costly character. The prodigious demand for
beet hemattites for steel-making by the Besse-
mer process, has led to much of this great rise.
Pig-iron partook of the strength of the stone
market. Between this date and last quarter,
some pigs are quoted up is 61 a ton. There
were few for which a rise of ,5s was not sought.
Finished iron held its: own at, in some cases,
from 20s to 30a advance upon last quarter, and
generally at a rise of from los to 15s upon the
earlier date. So much uncertainty seemed, how-
ever, to overhang the market, owing to the action
of the men on the one hand, and the course of
the money market on the other, that buyers and
sellers were unable to negotiate with anything
like a feeling of confidence. The makers of
pigs in this district are being inconvenienced,
and so, too, are some of the proprietors of the
mills and forges, by the refusal of many of the
thin-coal miners to go to work on the terms
their masters generally have offered them. In
and about the Tipton district, where the thin
and the thick coal is worked close together, the
thin coal men demand a rise of 6d a day, same
as has been conceded to the thick-coal men, and
one of the colliery proprietors having given the
terms demanded, most of the wen are on strike
for the saute scale, and a meeting of masters
has been called to consider the course now to
be aken. In and about Wolverhampton, where
thin coal is alone worked, the toasters agreed
last Wednesday to give them a rise of 3d a day,
to begin from Saturday next. The men object
to wait, and are mostly upon strike, encouraged
in their case also by certain employers having
commenced the advance at once. At a few
works more men are at work to.day than yester-
day, whilst at others there are fewer men in the
pits to-day than yesterday. Forges are here
and there standing for want of coal, and one
monwaster has ordered the whole of his mill

and forge to atop, rather than that the operations
tuould be only partial. let tiie wasters, having
oassed teu resolution as to the period of coin-
dencing the rise, will not alter it. There is
amongst thou, however, very little difference of
opinieu uat, nutter the prevaiting circumstan.
eta La Toe trade, they wade u mistake in not
giving the colliers toe rise at once, tor all the
coal that can now be gut tu batik is wanted
Almost day by day.