Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-05-02
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LANCASTER. MAY 9, 1885.
The Trouble About II.

The annual set-to between the Western
iron workers and their employers is now
taking place preparatory to the establish
ment Of the rate of wages for the year COM
mencing June first. The workmen are
banded into an association which has thus
far been very solid. The manufacturers
have been weaker in their combination,
their interests differing according to their
locality. The Pittsburg mills bear the
brunt OF the fight, and would make a
stOuter resistance to the demand of the
workmen if the employers at other
Western points were not inclined to slip
away from them and make a harvest
while the mills in Pittsburg stood idle.
II is said that the situation is different
this year from what it has been, and that
the workmen's association is weaker, be-
cause of the large substitution of steel for
iron, and the clashing Of interests of those
who make the cast into wrought iron, and
those who roll 1t into merchantable shape;
since the employment of the skill of the
latter is not threatened by the use of
steel, which requires rolling as much as
iron. Steel is largely taking the place Of
iron in the nail factories also SO that the
nail maker has lost his community of in
terest with the puddler. Under these cir
cumstances and because of the known an
proftableness of iron making just now, the
manufacturers seem to think that this year
they will not have to submit to the scale of
wages which the workmen have proposed
to them, which is substantially the same as
that now paid. They further say that they
will not pay the prices for labor that are
demanded, because they cannot and if
this is true, they certainly will let
their -rrrrs9> lie idle before conceding the
wages asked. The workmen dispute the
assertion that the Pittsburg mills cannot
compete with Eastern mills because of the
greater wages they are required to pay, and
they make up statement of the cost of bar
iron East and West, which shows that in
Pittsburg the cost is about thirty-one dol
lars and in the East forty-dollars. There
can be no doubt that this is an incorrect
estimate, as bar iron does not cost forty
dollars in the East and does cost more than
thirty-one in Pittsburg. But it is probable
that the cost in Pittsburg is something less
than Ii is in this section, because of the
much greater cheapness of fuel and the
great advantages in its market, and its
freight rates held by a city so favorably
situated for rail and water carriage.
The workmen argue that reduction in
their wages would bring reduction in the
) wages paid in the East, in order to again
equalize the cost of manufacture, and that
the Western manufacturers would gain
nothing by the sacrifice they make; nor
would reduction in the price of iron
create an increased demand for it, con-
trary result having followed the great re-
ductions that have taken place in the past
year or two. The lower the price, the less
apparently was the demand.
There is great force in this argument. II
is evident that iron manufacture is slack
because it is not wanted at any price in
quantity sufficient to employ the facilities
OF the mills. The expectation that it may
60 lower in price limits the demand to the
necessity of the hour. When the general
expectation is that the price will advance
1t will do so, because everyone will want to
buy 1t. The Pittsburg manufacturers are
not doing anything to create such belief
by seeking to reduce wages.