Birmingham state herald., 1896-03-01

less desultory and if we had a well or ganized iron trade association the work might be done continuously and system atfcally. Many of the largest consumers of our product have never been in the south, and their attention has not been personally directed to the consideration of the removal of their existing plants or the establishment of new ones. A thor oughly intelligent and competent repre- sentative of the district might be sent to call upon and make a presentation or our case to such consumers at a distance as might be selected by the trade assocla- ton. Facts and figures in the same d1- rection should be submitted in every case where a northern consumer or our iron IS burned out and compelled to rebuild. IL is needless to say that the chief dlrecuon which our efforts should be united Is to impress upon the producers of basic open hearth steel the advantage to accrue to them from the consumption or our metai at the point of production, where, II de- sired it can be furnished hot. with the establishment of such a plant, works Tor the production of boiler plates, sheets TOT timing, bars, structural ana prluBe work, wire rods and railroad material will very readily follow
 b. For the enlargement of the domestic market the most desirable thing to be done in my judgment is to secure uni, formity in grading and naming iron, ana selling it upon terms Of uniformity. u is very unsatisfactory to the conSumer III Canada or Minnesota to buy car load or forge iron for foundry purposes ana neXt month to buy from another producer car load of 2 soft and find that 1t contains less silicon and is less fluid. IL IS Scdfceiy too much to say that the whole qpestloh of grading iron is assuming more coii- plex condition, and that if it is not Tn a somewhat chaotic state the minds or some of the graders have attained that undesirable goal Harassed by the pressure of evil times and the desire or consumers for something cheaper, the el- fort has been contlnuaily haoe . iio. ~ split hairs but to split grades in cores bonding degree of fineness. rms ieaus to an absence of physical or chemical lines of demarcation, ad makes the ques.ioii oi grading depend more than ever on the IF divdual opinions of the buyer anu con- sumner. who naturally look at 1t rom diffedent standpoints and arrive at ui, ferent results. This leads to consloeIdole friction. and in the long run southern iron gets a bad name. With the organi- zation as before suggested or Strons local trade association the names or the grades could be definitely agreed upon, and arrangements made for at leaso monthly or bi-monthly interchange ol visits from one works to another, SD .hae the members might agree on the ihdIi'e nance of a common standard anu corr discrepancies and divergences rom IL:
 n The question of developing a TOT e.pn market is one which will at some future day be of very great interest. When the prices or Blrhihs nai Iii iron were at the lowest notch, on Aprii 1. 1885, it was then possible to put irolr aoi axnori Q. b. ship at tide water in Fen eacola or Mobile harbor, $2 per ton peioW the corresponding value of the cheapest t,uplish iron and it was found practi- cable to lay down iron in Liverpool graoe for grade at less than the price or Mio- dlesboro iron shipped across Ens iaiiu ~ that noint. The facts also developed that at those figures we have for Alabama ron anoexceedingly good chance Tor compe,i- tion in all the Mediterranean ports, very large quantities of iron being shippeu from England to Barcelona, Genoa' Giv- itasVecchia and other Italian ports. HIS iron may be shipped in conjunction With .t a. ", coal or foundry coke. It would be anseyneriment of somewhat doubtful out come A s to whether the coke might py the , o,lino-o of the vessel in an Atlantic voyage benunreas asonably broken up Tn coihpaIi son with the shorter voyage sustalieu bvs the English coke; but 1T not tnere IS room for the shipment of Alabama coai ana coke in competition with English into Mediterranean ports, although IL IS Iadr -tn sav that there has not yet been pront demonstra ble in that business. Ihe maln difficulty, however, in the development oi a European market for our iron IS anu will be the cOnlnldHulii5 ol na ee: and any other business that couio be grouped with pig iron such as the ex, portation to Spain or Italy Of coal ana coke, or either to Genoa, Bremen or Havre of cotton will materially Iacliltate the solution of the difficulty. Whenever our prices for iron fall again to bring them below the parity of English figures we should commence to work upon snip brokers and get in touch with regularly established lines of steamers ana also a.tramp" steamers and ss3ling ships. The same remarks apply with as great force to the less important markets of Bombay Calcutta Melbourne, Yokohama ana otn- CTS. These markets are dominated, both in pig iron and iron pipe, in coal and Tn coke. by the English, because of the pres ent exchange of commodities, which has settled steamers and sailing ships in cer- tain marine lanes of travel, from which it will require patience and perseverance on cur part to divert them.