The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-01 00:00:00

_Review of the iron Warket.

(Prom the Circular of Jfemrs. G. B. Toms and Co., chit,'
Lonckm, Jan. 1.)

Since our circular of the 15th September last, the
course of prices for British malleable iron has tended
so continuously downwards, from the extreme slack-
ness of demand, that it has appeared useless to con-
tinue ring4crely verbal changes upon the same
series of Cully discouraging facts. Railway
bars have now fallen to a point in South Wales
that has not been touched since 1861, when the
civil war in America broke out, which, by sud-
denly arresting large shipments, paralysed our ex-
port iron trade for a time ; Welsh 'Manufactured
iron therefore being at present cheaper in situ, than
any other in the world (not excepting Belgian),
such orders as may come upon the market will na-
turally flow to the Principality for execution, pro-
vided nothing under the heact of fiscal regulations,
place of delivery, specification, or payment, tends
to create a preference for, or give advantage to,
other sources of supply. Whenever the cup shall
overflow in Wales, and orders there become plenti-
ful enough to enable makers to get better
prices, Cleveland will again obtain a share of busi-
ness to employ its too numerous mills, forges, and
furnaCes; but not till then. On the Thames in-
activity 'pervades the engineering establishments
and shipbuilding- yards; while the 'artificers have
fitlien,frora high prospeeity,,into • Atter deatitutioni
It was expected that the large Soane bridge, for the
East India Railway Company, would have been
constructed here, but the tenders from Yorkshire
and the Tyne carried the day. Contracts for
all kinds of iron work are now very hotly con-
tested, and the ironmasters themselves are
entering the arena. Orders for iron steamers
can be placed with builders on our river
upon much easier terms than for some time past,
owing to the reduced cost of material and labour ;
and the Government is wisely availing itself of pre-
sent circumstances to increase the British navy at
Chatham Dockyard. As to prospects, let us not
forget that " if speech be silvan, silence is golden."
Russia is purchasing rails in our markets ; America
halts till duties are settled ; India will become yearly
a larger and better customer ; Italy buys of those
who will grant credit ; Canada's consumption, is
good, healthy, and profitable ; and the whole world,
in our era, must have iron, in spite of all the disas-
ters and disgraces in commercial practice which the
past year has disclosed, and the personal wrecks it
has left behind. The situation of the iron trade,
however, at this conjuncture is unique, and its
sufferings are directly traceable to au enormous
over-extension of works, chiefly on the Tees ; to
the payment of wages on a scale exceeding by one-
third what the sale price of finished iron has justi-
fied; and to the sudden collapse of the demand for
•shipbuilding.as well as railway construction, occa-
sioned by the frightful events in the English money
market last summer. The ancillary causes of the
present state of things have doubtless been the con-
stant strikes of the workpeople, and the state of
perpetual menace and alarm in which einployers
have consequently been kept by them and their
unions, led by brawling and unprincipled dema-
gogue=, themselves living upon the ignorance and
infatuation which prevail, while effecting those arti-
ficial combinations for maintaining wages which
have well-nigh ruined the productive industry of
Great Britain. Notwithstanding recent complaints
of mischief having arisen from foreign competition—
complaints which sound like the whining agricultural
cries that preceded the repeal of the corn laws—our
actual imports during the past year of finished mer-
chant bars, rails, and plates from France have been in-
significant, from Belgium inconsiderable ; but foreign
ironmasters have, it is true, obtained certain large
engine and rail orders for lines on the continent, for
which orders we competed in vain, some special cir
cumstances having given them the advantage ; we
have, however, been left undisputed furnishers of
those large quantities of rails used in the East
Indies ; and in the American market English rails
have been sold on a very much heavier scale than
those of Belgian manufacture. It ought also to be
stated that in a competition last month for 10,000
tons of Dutch State-Railway rails, Welsh and
Middlesborough houses were successful in securing
contracts, in spire of the circumstance that proximity
of delivery was so favourable to the Belgian works;
there is no reason therefore to sit down in despon-
dency and declare the game up, for all time, with
the British ironmaster, but every ground exists for
confidence in the future, provided only that he
diminishes the cost of production, so as to enable
him to meet present market prices without loss. For
rails of high quality, such, for instance, as the
Brighton or East Indian Railways would lay down,
we have nothing to fear at present from Belgium,
because the tests employed are declared insupport-
able at the foreign works, and it is only in common
iron that their prices even approach those of Wales.
They have not secured the 40,000 tons of rails for
Russia, as stated. Another point which deserves
attention when discussing the continental iron trade
is the heavy shipments of Cleveland and Scotch pig
iron which have gone ..into consumption lately in
Belgium and France, from which it must be inferred
that those countries possess no superiority whatever
over the United Kingdom in smelting the ores of
iron, or they would not be importing forge pigs from
us. On the other hand, it would equally appear some
advantage must lie in the cheaper labour which
foreigners can command for the subsequent mani-
pulatory processes by which malleable iron is pro-
duced. In other words, we have paid a great deal too
much money to our puddlers, millmen, and forge-
men, as indeed was strikingly proved and brought
out by the facts published at Middlesborough during
the late stubborn and senseless struggle of the iron-
workers to support a false and extravagant rate of
remuneration, far beyond what many educated
gentlemen either receive or expect in professional
and mercantile life. All this will, no doubt, be
remedied in future, if the men shall emancipate
themselves from the tyranny of those organised
conspiracies called " Unions," and begin to discover
that they must themselves sink or swim along with
the ironmasters, because both are in the same boat,
and the natural relations between capital and labour,
and supply and demand, cannot be divorced with
impunity by either party. The growth of metal

lurgical industry abroad during the past twenty
years has not, however, escaped observation any-
where out of Staffordshire ; nor have its evidences,
at the Exhibitions of London and Paris, passed
without recognition and comment by the trade in
general on various other occasions. Every annual
visit to the continent has confirmed the impression
that our national supremacy in the applications of
iron may not last for ever, because skill and genius
have been more widely distributed than our insular
conceit has liked to admit, but in the production of
the raw material nature has so richly dowered Great
Britain that we have never thought our trade

therein pregnable, and it is as certain as it is satis-
factory to note that British exports of iron during
the past year have still exceeded those of every
other nation on the globe. The abundance of money
with which the new year opens, coupled with a re-
suscitation of credit, may, as we have seen hereto-
fore, re-awaken enterprise, and cause business again
to brighten in an article whose range of fluctuation
is nearly cent. per cent., but which, all things, con-
sidered, was, we suppose, never affording a less re-
munerative return for the capital employed in its

production than at this present moment, while its
sister mineral product, coal, is yielding handsomer

profits than at any former period.

The Hanoverian postal authorities have received
orders to put on the Prussian uniform from the Ist
of January.
The average cost of a Prussian soldier, including
the pay of -officers, &c., is estimated at 200 thalers
(£3O) a year ; of a French soldier, 1,000 francs
(£4O) a year.

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AUS I'EALIA AND.TTE W LZEA.L/11.

We are indebted for the following intelligenctt to
an "extra" of the Panama Star aarl pub-
liAed on the 7th of December :--
" The Peninsula and New Zealand and Austra-
lian Royal Mail Company's steamship Ruahine,
Captain Beale, arrived in the harbour on the Gth
inst., after the closing of the regular mails for
Europe.
" Sydney, Nov. 1, 3 p.m.—The Royal Mail
steamer Rualii rived here on the 10th ult., but
her advices w ticipated by those via the Torres
Straits mail, h arrived two days previously,
and the Peninsula id. Oriental Company's mail,
which arrived at A -on the same morning.
" The Peninsula and New Zealand Company's
last new steamer Mataura arrived at Melbourne on
Sunday last, after a passage of over 70 days from
Plymouth ; defects iu machinery caused the delay.
She will be repaired here and leave with the mails
on the Ist proximo.
" The Victoria Government has'recently shown a
disposition to enter into arrangements with that of
New south Wales for payment of a portion of the
Panama mail subsidy. If they do so the line may
be looked upon as likely to be carried on for some
years, unless the company fails
,to carry out the
contract. They have despatched the Prince Alfred
to Panama with a cargo of coals, and to be used as
apare boat' should occasiorcnriiid '-"
"The Royal Mail steamer Ruahine leaves in :a
few minutes, and takes a fair number of passengers,
but no specie. The latter is attributable to the fact
that the banks here have reduced exchange on
England to 13- per cent. premium. In Melbourne
they are drawing on London at 3- per cent. premium.
Ever since the departure of the last mail via
Panama, per Kaikoura, commercial affairs have
been in an unsatisfactory position. Several large
houses have succumbed to the pressure and
and brought down a number of smaller ones.
The aggregate liabilities of those who have sus-
pended payment amounts in round numbers to about
half a million sterling. The greater portion of this
sum as represented by the estates of Messrs. L. E.
Threlk.eld and Co., and Messrs. Wilkinson Brothers,
an American house doing business chiefly with Bos-
ton, Valparaiso, and California. These .two firms
are almost the only ones that were engaged in
foreign trade; the debts owing by the others are
nearly all local. The feeling at present is that we
have seen the worst of it ; and although the losses
incurred by many of our commercial houses have
been very large, there does not appear to be any
probability of any old established firms being ob-
liged to suspend payment. The crisis through which
we have passed was unusually severe, and it speaks
well for our commercial stability that so trying a
test has not been attended by any worse results.
No fresh failures have occurred since the departure
of the last overland mail. It is only reasonable to
expect that the circumstances just referred to would
depress business and weaken confidence. They
have done so. Merchants have declined to force
their goods on the market at ruinous prices, and
consequently stocks of all kinds are accumulating,
and must do so until shipments hence are checked.
The prospects of an unusually good harvest, now
almost ready, and the fact that unless something
very extraordinary occurs we shall have sufficient
grain in the colonies for the year's consumption,
give a cheering aspect to the future. The amount
of hard cash which has gone out of the Australian
colonies for breadstuffs during the past three sea-
sons cannot have been less than a million and a half
sterling. Under more favourable circumstances the
whole of this money would have passed into the
hands of our farmers, without the expenditure of any
more capital than they lost in efforts which drought,
blight, rust, and floodsrendere 1 useless. It is cal-
liilated that South Australia- alone will this season
have a surplus of over 100,000 tons of breadstuffs,
and the crops of our own colony will be much larger
than was anticipated a month ago.
"NEW SOUTH WALES.—After a fierce struggle,
the Legislative Assembly has passed through
all its stages a bill making education more
unsectarian, and extending the public school
system into thinly populated districts. The Bank
of New South Wales has declared a dividend of 9
per cent. for the past half-year ; the New South
Assurance Company a dividend of 5 per cent. for
same period; the Sydney Insurance a similar divi-
dend. The Sussex-street mystery has been cleared
up. The police have arrested the murderer, and
the limbs and other missing portions of the
remains have been found in a water-closet. The
victim was a woman named Scott. The murderer,
a butcher named William Henry Scott, was her
husband. He recently married another wife in
Melbourne, hence the incentive to one of the foulest
deeds ever perpetrated in Australia. The Tenter-
field bank robbers have all been convicted. The
ringleader, a German, got ten years OR the roads.
Great preparations have been made for the ade-
quate representation of the industry of the colony
at the world's fair at Paris. A large quantity of
the exhibits have been shipped to London per Nine-
veh. 111adame Jaffa, the piauistc, has sailed for
California, per Golden Sunset. The report of Dan
Setchell, the American comedian, having arrived
safely is unfounded ; no tidings have ever been re-
ceived of the ship in which he sailed. Large num-
bers of unemployed men have solicited the Ame-
rican Consul for free passage to America. Over
2,000 are now in this city seeking work. The 50th
Regiment has arrived here. Her Majesty's ships
Curacoa and Eclipse have sailed for England.

" VICTORIA.--The Intercolonial Exhibition, pre-
paratory to that of Paris, was opened with great
pomp on the 25th ult., by his Excellency Governor
Manners Sutton, who is becoming very popular.
Bourke, the bushranger, who was chased out of
New South Wales by the police, reappeared near
Melbourne and commenced his outrages. He visited
a farmhouse near Melbourne, and attempted to
shoot the son of a settler named Hurst, who at once
fired, but missed, and was sh)t dead by Bourke.
The latter was at once secured and committed for
trial for murder. The ship Result, belonging to
Messrs. Phillips, Shaw, and Maxton, of London,
has been destroyed by fire at Sandridge, while load-

ing for England. About 500 tons of cargo were
consumed. The goldfields continue very prosperous.
Trade dull ; failures numerous. Flour selling at
£lO to £l2 ; wheat, 4s. 31 to 53. Parliament is
further prorogued to February next. The bulk of
the new wool clip has been shipped, or is now going
on board, and will reach England in time fur the
February sales. The Melbourne Cup will be run
for to-day, value about £l,OOO. Twenty-four horses

will start.
" ADELAIDE.—The Government has decided upon
abandoning the new settlement at Cape York.
Al‘Kinlay, the explorer, reports that the whole affair
has been badly managed. A resolution has passed
Parliament urging reciprocity between the c )lonies
in all colonial manufactures. llarvest prospects
splendid.

The crop promises to be the largest for

years. Emigration from England at Government

expense has been stopped.
" QuEENsLAND.--The new taxes are found very
oppressive, and large numbers of newly arrived im-
migrants are leaving the colony. Parliament has
been prorogued. New diggings have been discov-
ered near Bowen. The Crocodile mines are yield-
ing largely. Numerous incendiary fires recently

occurred in and about Brisbane. A large reward
has been offered for the perpetrators. A terrific

hailstorm passed over Brisbane on list Friday night.

The Ipswich coach was upset and one passenger
killed ; a boat on the river swamped and drowned
one man. Great destruction to house property.

A subterranean telegraph wire now gives instant
communication between the Bourse and the Grand
Hotei on the Boulevards, so that the residents may
have quick knowledge of the price of the funds and
of any news officially posted up.