The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-01-09 00:00:00

NORTHERN CHEMICAL TRADE IN
1885.

Soda, one of the leading articles of the northern
chemical trade, is at the present time at
about the lowest price known in the history
of the trade, and the competition with some of the
foreign makers seems rather increasing than decreas-
ing. At the beginning of the present year the price of
soda crystals on the Tyne was .E 2 Os. per ton, and it
rose 3s. to 4s. in the height of the shipping season,
but it has now sunk to .E 2 is., a price which entails a
loss estimated at from 4s. to Bs. per ton. The price of
soda ash has fallen to a fully corresponding extent.
It is believed that the extent of the production has
been reduced, and it is well kncwn that the asso-
ciated makers have been trying by combination to
prevent that great decline in price, but so far with-
out success. The competition has already
crushed out one of the smaller manufactories on the
Tyne, and is likely to crush out others unless there
should be a change in the position of the trade.
There have been some features which serve as a set-
off to these low prices it is true, for the price of sul-
phur has been reduced considerably, and another of
the raw materials—salt—has also been easier to buy;
but these reductions are only believed to have slightly
lessened the loss on the production of soda. The
older process in that manufacture—the Leblanc
process--is still universal on the Tyne, and every year
the competition of the new ammonia process is grow-
ing keener, not only at home but abroad, so that less
help than would formerly have been given is obtained
from the cheapness of sulphur and salt. In the pro-
duction of soda by the older process there is given
out what was formerly a waste product, but is now a
very valuable one—that from which bleaching powder
is made. Owing to the reduced production of soda by
the older process, and by the effect of a combination
of the bleaching powder makers of the United Kingdom,
the price of that article has been very materially
raised of late years, and in the year 1885 the
price has been fairly maintained over the whole of
the year, for at the beginning the price was £6 55.,
and at its end it is .E 6 per ton—a price which is fully
50 per cent. above that of a few years ago. So long
as tlat high price is obtainable, so long will there be
a production of soda, even at a loss, by the older pro-
cess, and the maintenance of the price may be said
to depend on the retention of the monopoly of the
make by the Leblanc process and the continuance
of the combination of the makers. Bleaching powder
is for the time the staff on which the chemical trade
of the north depends, though there has been and will
be a considerable gain in the producers of chemicals
in the north owing to the large development of pro-
duction of salt in South Durham. Prior to the
utilisation of the stores of salt in South Durham, the
bulk of that material was obtained from the Cheshire
salt makers, and the price of the salt was almost
doubled by the cost of its 'carriage to the Tyne. As yet
the full benefit in price of the enlarged production of
South Durham has not been obtained, the competi-
tion having been limited ; but it is considered certain
that the output of salt will increase. It may, how-
ever, lead to the production of soda in South Durham
on I a large scale, for there are now in successful
operation alkali works at Port Clarence. The Tyne
chemical trade seems, therefore, still menaced by the
increasing competition in the alkali trade. Any
general revival of trade would add to the demand for
chemicals considerably; but the cheaper method of
production in those districts where salt is procurable
in the form of brine seems certain to leave to the
chemical trade on the Tyne only the profit which re-
mains on that article of which they still have a
monopoly of the manufacture. The continuous fall
in the price of soda, which was only a few years ago
about .E 4 per ton, and is now about one half that
sum, has brought with it some attempt to minimize
the cost of production; but it is difficult to do this as
rapidly by the older process as by the newer one, and
it is this new process, especially abroad, which seems
gradually reducing the area for the sale of that
article for which the Tyne chemical trade has long
been noted—soda crystals.

At a revival meeting in Hopkinsville, Ind., occurred
the wedding of a coloured couple who begin their
married life with thirty-two children, the gruoio
havirg twenty-two and the bride ten.