The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-04-20
TRADE AND INDUSTRY.

lHE sIflllkdBe III Tie market value OF
the stocks of the four fighting railroads
New York Central, Erie, Pennsylvania,
and Baltimore and Ohio in the last two
years is $4,000, 900, or about 30 per
cent. The fall on Pennsylvania Central
is 1927, 900, 900, and on New York Central
$25, 10000
The English spinners are startled by
the discovery that the best-managed cot
ton factories in England cannot produce
No. 30 yarn mt less than 81 pence per
pound, while in France they can produce
it for less than 3 pence per pound. One
reason why is the fact that in France the
operatives work sixty-six hours a week,
while north of the Channel they work
fifty-six hours week 1t is proposed to
meet this state of facts on the pre-emi-
nently British plan, and send mission
aries to agitate among the operatives of
France for reduction of the hours of
labor to fifty-six week.
IT is said that Secretary Evarts intends
to infuse little more vigor into the Con-
sular system, and turn it to the better
advantage of this country. His idea is
to appoint Consuls from among the prac-
teal business men, and constitute them
an actual corps of observation on the
picket line of commerce. They are to
be the agency for informing the manu-
facturers of the United States, by samples
and otherwise, concerning the exact prac-
teal needs of the districts in which they
serve, and point out the way clearly for
an extension of American commerce.
The idea is worthy of its author, and is
eminently practical and statesmanlike.
1t is exactly what American industry and
commerce now need.
FROM the Mersey alone, to say nothing
of the Clyde, to which the Anchor and
the States lines belong, ten distinct At
lantic fleets are now sailing, comprising
over 100 steam vessels of from 2, 900 to
to 5000 tons, and carrying in some cases
as many as 1000 and /, 700 passengers,
in addition to their large crews and cargo
the extent of hundreds of tons. OF
the fleets, the vessels of five go to the
port of New York alone, two go to Bos-
ton, and two to Philadelphia and one
lne-the Allan-is devoted to the Cana
dian trade, in which it has eighteen YES
sells employed, varying from 1000 to
1000 tons.
The peculiarities of the American
foreign trade have just developed some
interesting phases in England. Recent
orders sent from Australia to Sheffield
steel manufacturers for fine cutlery and
general hardware distinctly specify that
the articles desired must be made from
american iron. 1t used to be custom
airy to flatter precocious boy by telling
him that he "would be man before his
mother" Uncle Samuel has some rea-
son to believe that he is realizing the
truth of the expression. His beef is
crowding out the roast beef of old
England, and now his iron goes to the
ends of the earth in preference to the
products of Brittania. The another
country" will find her commercial level
in the whirligig of time, and Uncle Sam
may well laugh when he sees his thirty
eight nephews and nieces controlling the
trade of the world.
MORE than half the pig-iron furnaces
in the Lehigh and Schuylkill valleys are
still out of blast, and likely to be so for
some time. Pittsburgh is quite generally
employed, and the prices of pig-iron at
that point are slightly advanced. The
Cleveland iron district in England-the
greatest single district in the world in
the amount of its production-which has
been so completely Frustrated by the
cessation of the demand for iron rails, is
recovering somewhat on the strength of
improvements i'll the manufacture of
iron rails, making them of approximate
value to steel. Iron rails were formerly
made by series of imperfect YIELDS OF
strips of iron, in consequence of which
the rails easily split up or Eliminated.
The English are now first learning to
roll them from a homogeneous mass, as
steel rails are rolled. In pig-iron, the
production of the Cleveland district is
still immense, larger probably than that
of all this country. 1t is killing the
Scotch iron interest and competing hotly
with the Belgian and German West
phalian), which are only able to sustain
about one-third of their usual produc-
ton. The demand for protection to the
iron interest is made again, we observe,
in the German Parliament, while Russia
requires Russian railroads henceforth tC
equip themselves at the home FORCES and
work shops.