The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-05-02 00:00:00

THE IRON TRADE.

From the talk and doings among the ironmas•
ters at Wolverhampton, on Wednesday, there
seemed little encouragement to hope for the re•
vivid of trade, and it is quite certain that there
Is little or nothing to encourage hopes of better
prices or better wages. Best pig•iron maintains
its price, due more to limited supply than large
demand; and a like cause has rendered the
prices for some sorts of finished iron somewhat
firmer. If all the men were at work there is not
three days' employment a week for them.
At the weekly market held on Tuesday, at
Middlesborough, there was very little business
doing. During the last month, when the spring
and Continental demand should have been con-
siderable, the stocks have decreased very slowly.
The stoppage in the ironworks in Staffordshire
has weakened the demand for Cleveland pigs,
and owing to the cotton mills in Manchei.ter
being on short time, there have been very few
orders from that quarter. A better report is
given of the Leeds district, where things are a
little brisker. Shipments to Scotland, Holland,
and Belgium are pretty well maintained. Orders
for rails are coming in very slowly, and certainly
not in sufficient abundance to keep the works
alything like fully employed. There is not
• tch a large demand for shipbuilding iron as was
o epected some time ago. Bar iron is dull. The
o'osing quotations for pig iron were as follows:
—No. 1,47 a; No. 3,43 s ; No. 4,42 s lid.

Business in the Iron Trade of this district re-
mains extremely quiet so fur as regards orders,
very few having come in since Quarter-day;
and although those given out at the time arc
in the bulk unexecuted, consequent on the dis-
pute with the men, no very great inconvenience
on that am;ennt has beau experienced—a fact
which in itself shows how impossible it would be
Reep the works on at anything like fall tune,
if the men were all of them disposed to go in.
Prole:lay three-tot:Wu of the mill-inen have re-
turned to work at the reductions. At Itound
Oak Works there are now four furnaces in;
it was mentioned on 'Thursday at the Exchange
that some men were willing to do so, but that
certain waiters made it a rule to re•CUILILICUCO
on a Monday only. How far that statement is
accurate wile be seen hereafter.

THE WAGES QUESTION.
WOLVERIIAMPTON, KA(Stiey.

The cliflicult work of forming a union and
maintaining a strike is still persevered in by
those who have taken it in hand; end to coun-
teract the tendency of men to consult their in-
dividual interests, daily meetings to renew reso-
lutions to accept the old wages and no other are
hold in the district. To-day the meeting was
at the Temperance Hall, Bilston ; hut, neverthe-
less, at a neighbouring ironworks the puddlers
returned to their work at the drop—weary of
strife and no wages. Hitherto the puddlers
have shown the greatest disinclination to accept
the masters' terms; and it will be by very slow
degrees that they will give into what, unhappily
for them, is an inevitable necessity. Their case
is admitted on all hands to be a very hard one.
As a general rule they can work but 9 months in