Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-11-22
lancaster .9ntelligellrer.
"WEDNESDAY EVENING NOV. %, ise:
The Depression In Steel.

Inc depression In STEEL
The steel rail manufacturers are nota-
bly, frank in the expression of their views
upon the causes of the depression in their
industry. Mr.. Carnegie, Of the Edgar
Thomson works, and Mr.. Hunt, of the
Bethlehem company, state the matter
In q way to make it perfectly lucid to
everybody why their prosperity has sud-
denly ceased. The productive capacity
of the Bessemer rail manufactures has
been vastly increased under the stimu-
lation of the large business offered them
and the great profits which enabled them
to develop their facilities for taking it.
Now the business has fallen off because
the railroads, their customers. are no
longer flush with proceeds of their traffic
and of loans easily made. AS the rail
mills have no customers but the rail
roads, their business dwindles as rail-
road building and improving halts. The
result has probably been foreseeD by all
of them. While the sun shone they all
made their hay in harmony; now their
harmony ceases; when the orders for
rails are not enough to go around, they
are competitors against one another for
them. Those who can manufacture
cheapest get the orders. The western
rail mills seem to be at disadvantage,
owing t. the grea. cost of'their raw ma
terialsl aud they are the first to show
themselves hurt. Pennsylvania mills
show that they can afford to take orders
at forty dollars ton, because they are
doing it they would not do it if they
could not afford it. Mr.. Carnegie says
that the Edgar Thomson works will not
make rails at a loss, and nobody will
ind it hard to believe him. The other
manufacturers are like unto him in this
respect, and prices will have to get down
towards thirty.ive dollars before all the
mills are shut down. OF course they
vii! never reach the lowest limit of cost.
There will always be large demand for
s,ee! rails, of course, and the mills that
can afford to make them cheapest will
ge. the orders for them. and those man
ufactu,ers who cannot afford to make
,hem in competition with their neigh
bors. will have to look for some Other
employment for their capital.
There would seem to be an outlet fol
tie superintendent manufacturing facili'
ties of the steel rail mills in the making
of steel merchant bars. and no louh. thi:
will be attempted. The Penus:iyani;
steel company, in anticipation OF the pres
ent emergency has, during the past year
erected Il large mill for tue manufacture
o; merchant steel. There seems to b,
no reason why many kinds Of merchant
iron may not be supplanted by steel .and
rs Bessemer steel can be made at les
cost than iron, where it will do in
stead of iron, it will supplant it
Steel cannot he punched without iDjur
ing its strength, and it therefore vii
only be able TO take the place of iron t
a limited extent, if at all.
The depression in the steel manufac
ture can hardly he considered as any
thing of a public calamity. The manu-
facturers who experience it can afrort
to bear the experience with eQuanimit
in view of the fatness they have gathere'
about their financial ribs in their lat
era of gushing prosperity; while the de
creased price of their commodity is
public advantage. Cheap steel and irol
will lie conducive to the general prosper
ity. The iron and steel workers vii
have to he content with less wages ant
less profits, and should Ike public -spirite'
enough not to complain at the lesscnin
of the tax their smaller recompens
imposes upon the industry of the couI
try.