New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-05-22
FREE TR1DE IN IRON.
lalrylng.

AT this time, when Congress has just been lis
tening to elaborate speeches on the tariff de
signed to support the proposal to put an end to the
protection oihOme industry II may be profitable
TO notice the condition of the iron industry.
The favorite motion OF the opponents of the
tariff is to admit all materials free OF
duty. Pig iron is the raw material from which
bar and almost all other kinds of iron IN
form for use, as well as rails and a large pro
portion of the steel produced, are manuiac-
tured. The removal of duties upon pig
iron, with a reduction of duties on bar and
other forms of iron to point barely suiii-
Gent to compensate for the difference in
cost of labor entering into the finished article,
would Immediately expose one OF our most
important Industries to n violent change, the
nature and effect of which ought to be care
fully studied.
American pig iron, of the grade known as
No. / foundry, is selling at $50 per ton. At
that price, only 457 furnaces were in blast,
while PSI could not afford to make iron and
were out of blast The number out OF blast
was greater 10y 2G than at the close of
the year 1850, and it cannot be doubted that
many more would be closed, and the produc
ton would greatly diminish, if the price should
be materially reduced. At latest mail quota
tons the price of Scotch pig in London was
40 shillings pence, or ST. 80 per ton. Rates
of freight are now unusually low on the
ocean. but So per ton is in ordinary times
full rate for this class of freight, so that,
there no duty Oh pig iron, vast quantity
could be sent hithcr from England for sale at
$17 per ton, or even less, at the same profit
which is realized 10y the makers on sales at
the present price in London. Even with the
duty, the shipments of pig iron from Great
Britain to the United States were 107,G25
tons during the first quarter of 1852, against
G6,447 tons during the first quarter Of 1851.
The price in this country has changed but
little since early this year. This would indi-
cate, what is otherwise known, that the fur
naces which are in position to make pig iron
with profit at about present prices have been
fairly employed, and yet have not been so
crowded that it has been possible to maintain
an advance The demand practically equals
the supply at about $50 per ton for
No. foundry, a small part of the demand
being met by 10000 tons of British iron in
three mouths Hence it is obvious that,
should prices drop far, a large part of the de-
many American furnaces would be forced TO
stop and many laborcrs would be thrown out
of employment. If the price should sink to
ST. 81, the average price for the year 1878,
il would be reasonable to expect that the pro-
duction would fall to about that of 1878,
namely, $500, 900 tons; in other words, about
II per cent of the present production would be
likely to cease, and about II per cent of the
workmen now employed in this branch of in
dustry would be thrown out of employment.
But, as we have seen. British iron could now
be imported and sold here, free of duty, for
less than $l7 81 per ton.
1t might be reasoned that any demand for a
greatly increased quantity of iron from Great
Britain would Immediately lift the price. Pos
sibly it might; in ordinary times it probably
would. But the situation of this industry
abroad is snch that prices have been declining
heavily. The same pig iron that now
sells for 81 81 in London, according to the
published quotations, sold there for $l3 II
per ton on the 9th of January this year. This
indicates, as do other facts that the IRON
making industry in Great Britain is even now
turning out considerably larger product
than can be marketed. a removal Of duty on
pig iron would first enable British makers TO
empty their surplus, month by month, and all
their surplus accumulated up to this time, at
prices which would close host of American
furnaces.
Is this desirable? In every ton of pig, ac-
cordng to the Bulletin of the Iron and Steel
Association, there is not less than $11 81 worth
of labor. that amount in wages being earned at