The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-28
SEATTLE. THURsDAY. july 2s.
SOUTHERN IRON COMPETITION.

The PosT-IsTELLIGyScEar recently argued
that the natural advantages OF the Ala
hama and Tennessee iron manufacturers
were such that the Pennsylvania manu-
facturer was subjected TO severe competl-
ton, and that to this competition was TO
be attributed the overproduction and the
consequent low prices which forced the
PENNSYLVANIA manufacturer TO make some
reduction in wages. To this situation We
attributed the transfer Of the Hewitt
Cooper iron plant from Trenton, n. j., TO
Tennessee.
An intelligent correspondent in letter
printed in the PosT-IsTELLIGEScER denied
that Southern competition affected the
Pennsylvania manufacturer. It IS true
that Southern competition has not inter
fered with the higher products OF manu-
facture in the iron and steel business, as
there are few steel works, structural iron
works or other works which turn out the
higher grades of iron and steel in the
South, which has not yet educated Its
workmen to this higher grade of work, for
which pig iron is the raw material, never
theiess Southern iron smelling con-
Quoted regardless of profit by Southern
companies to boom town lots has sent the
price of iron down, and to this is largely
due the strikes at Homestead, Pa.
The Southern town companies have pro-
ceeded upon the assumption that an iron
furnace was the first requisite for town;
that as soon as the furnace was built the
people would come, yielding profit from
sale Of lots more than enough to make up
the possible loss on the furnace. The re-
suit was that furnaces sprang up all over
the South without regard to the chances
of their proving good business invest
ments by themselves, and they have been
kept running at a slight profit. or even a
loss. In order TO keep up the town, when a
Pennsylvania furnace under similar con-
ditions would have shut down.
These town furnace companies have pro-
duced so much pig iron that good quality
pigs can be bought in the South as low as
50 a ton, price below the rate at which
nine-tenths of the old Pennsylvania fur
naces could afford to operate.
This Southern town boom business was
overdone. The failure of the town COM
panies has forced the furnace owners to
crowd their production and realize for
cash as quickly as possible at the expense
ofiowering the market price. This method
of business has flooded the pig iron mar
kets and large shipments were made 10
the Pittsburg market.
Nine dollars ton at Birmingham and
Sheffield meant Sl2 at Pittsburg. This re-
duction of the price of the raw material
brought down the market price of struc-
tural iron beams, steel rails and the other
more highly manufactured products. and
correspondingly, under the sliding scale,
reduced the mems wages in the North.
Few of these reductions were accepted
without strikes. In many cases the wages
would have had to be so greatly reduced
10 make the furnace profitable TO the
owners that the furnace was abandoned
AT recent sale furnace property in
interior Pennsylvania which cost over
$4,000 was sold for $1,000, and at that
price it was bought in by the holders of
the first mortgage bonds. In the same
neighborhood five furnaces have been en-
tirely abandoned.
For these facts we are indebted 10 a long
and elaborate article on Southern Iron
Smelling" in the New York sun of the I'D
inst The conclusion OF the S,ln writer is
that "the town hooms in Georgia, Alabama
and Tennessee are important causes of the
labor troubles around Pittsburg. The
town boomers built too many furnaces.
the furnaces turned out so much pig iron
that the market price fell. and Pennsyi-
wanna ~ now going through the painful
process Of adjustment 70 prevailing con-
ditons"