Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1889-04-26
THE SHIFTING OF TRADE.
REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES THAT ARE &c.
CURING IN GREAT NDuSTRIES
Iron and Cotton Manufacture Drifting
to the south-The Natural Condl-
tions Here and Elsewhere.

subjects for thought. The rise and fall of
the centres of production and exchange OF
the past, If brought within the scope Of gem
eral comprehension, would afford many
valuable lessons i'm economics that would
be applicable still. These changes in
the seats of business activities are going
on 20 agreater or less extent In all civ
ilizcd countries, and before referring to
those that are taking place in our
country 1t may interest the general
reader to recall few of the mutations
in commerce and manufactures I'm other
parts of the world. The construction of the
Suez ship canal revolutionized the COM
merce of the Eastern hemisphere, If not of
the world, by shortening the voyage to the
countries of the distant East from six and
eight months to thirty days, thereby bring
ing nations previously separated by vast
distances into much closer relations in buy
ing and selling. The train of results
springing from the channel cut through
that isthmus would he amusing if presented
i'm detail, made up as it would be Of such
items as the displacement of shipping To
the amount of two millions Of tonnage,
useless storage depots and idle ship-yards
on the one hand, and this apparent loss
more than counterbalanced by rapid tran
sit, increased intercourse and reduced cost
of carriage on the other.
Pursuing the subject Of the change of
bafes i'm trade, we find them cropping out
in curious and interesting forms. For
known as madler, the cultivation of which
employed many hands in Turkey, Holland,
Belgium, France and Italy, has been super
seeded by a dye called alisarin, made out Of
coal tar, thus transferring an extensive
industry from the open fields once vocal
with the hum of men, women and children
in seed time and harvest, to the laboratory
of the chemist The silk trade of England,
which once employed thousands of opera
tives and looms, has dwindled to mere
shadow of what it was few decades since,
with the export of this fabric reduced to
but 92,670,0O0, while the import of it
amounts TO Ell,O00.O00 Coventry and
Macclesiield, at one time the hourishing
seat of this industry, have been distanced
in the race of skill aud technical knowledge
hy the art school trained operatives OF
Basle, i'm Switzerland, and of Creiield,
in Germany, which now supply the
bulk of the silk ribbons for the adjournment
of the fair sex of country that but few
years ago led the way in thoir pro-
duc;ion. A striking instance of the change
of trade centres and related more closely to
the gist of my subject has taken place of
late wears i'm the iron business of England
and is well known to the intelligent iron
man of this country. The noted iron dis
trict of Cleveland, in the North of ofEngland,
as late as 1850, was purely agricultural
section of country. A few years subse-
uucntly discoveries of large deposits of
iron ore were made in ii and such was the
rapidity of the growth of the manufacture
of iron in that region that in 1886 there were
already eighty-six blast furnaces IN opera
ton max ing an annual product of 5Si, 600
tons of pig metal, and in 1872 the increase of
furnaces had run the output of iron up to
l,96s,972 tons. The development of that
locality in all branches of the iron trade, as
well as i'm other respects, is looked upon in
England as marvel and now surpasses
such noted old centres ofiron production as
Staflordshire and Wales, if not all the other
ones in Great Britain.
The shifting of trade centres in this
country relate more especially to two of
it's leading products iron and cotton. The
Southern states already possess some of
the best equipped cotton mills in the
world, and though as yet employed in the
main in the production of the coarser
grades of goods, but little time will be re-
auired at the rate at which development
advances In this country TO enable the
Southern mills, with their cheap raw ma
terial, increasing skill and decreasing mar
gins of profit on fabrics of all kinds, TO
produce cotton goods of every grade at
figures that will he unapproachablo by
factories in New England. The keynote
in iron competition sounded by am extern
sive PENNSYLVANIA iron manufacturers, in
the words that he " regards the South as
- Pennsylvauia's most formidable industrial
enemy in the future, " may be revelation
to many of our people, but to those who
the complete triumph of our South
ern states In the production OF tho
cheapest iron and of superior brands made
I'm this country is clearly established. Pig
metal produced ut cost of but nine and
ten dollars per ton are hgures beyond the
reach of the iron-makers Of our state.
While have no desire to play the part
of an alarmist, think It is not amiss to
point out some facts which have an inn
portant bearing on the iron business of
this state, especially ON plants located in
the eastern and central portions of 1t. Fuel
is an all-mportant factor In tho produc-
ton and manipulation of iron, ami to
make the business remuncratlve ana per-
manent the price of 1t should he steady, or
at least without the constant upward
tendency which characterizes the price OF
anthracite coal. Considering the very
limited area of the deposits OF anthracite
and the increasing demand for 1t, outside
of smelling and iron-maEing purposes,
the project ola future supply OF II at
price that will enable the plants of the
eastern and central sections of our state to
compete with those located In the bitumi-
nous and natural gas fields of Western
Pennsylyania and the South Is anything
but encouraging. Soft coal or coke Is the
fuel best suited for the manufacture of iron
In all its stages-a fact that Eastern manu-
tacturcrs are we'll aware of and have acted
upon it during several prosperous years by
the extensive use of coke, especially by the
considerable admixture of IL with anthra-
cite in blast furnaces, which accounts To
some extent for the increased product of
Eastern furnaces of late years, The signs
of the movement of the base of the great
iron industries of Eastern Pennsylvania to
fields more thoroughly adapted 10 the
cheap and abundant supply of the most
useful of all metals are already apparent in
the hard struggle to make ends meet, os-
pecially in the finished product, and the
failure to even do this on the part of certain
well-equipped plants, as well in the actual
removal of certain iron and steel plants to
the South. The days of the ornamental
management of the iron business, with high
salaried figure-hsaded officials In the lead
of it, are passing away, to be superseded by
the technically educated specialist, metal
knowledge the success of most modern
industries is due, instead of To the high
titled empiric, whose presidential and
managerial pretensions absorb entirely too
much of their profits or margins.
This subject is so important to our state,
if not to the country at large, that il can
hardly be viewed from too many stand
points and therefore some forecast in the
matter Will not be amiss and may lead to
plans and Investments that are related To q
nearer future than may be supposed. TC
those who ara directly Interested in coal
and iron | would suggest comparison o
the anthracite with the bituminous Goa
fields of this country. The former will bt
found to he amere speck on our geological
maps, embracing fIagmentary areas In
a few counties in the northeastern see
tion of Pennsylvania, with an estimated
extent of but 500 square miles, while TN
Appalachian range alone, with length
of 800 miles, and breadth vary