Evening star., 1899-02-09
THE ENGLISH UNDERSOLD
Shipment of 5000 Tons of Pittsburg Pig
Iron to Birmingham.
Cheap Ocean Freights Largely Re-
-PrOposition of Germans.

Consul Halstead of Birmingham, Eng,
today furnishes the State Department with
further information on the, already widely
discussed question of the competition Of
American iron and iron products in the
English markets.
The latest food for discussion by thu Eng
lish papers from which Mr.. Halstead quotes
is the shipment of 5000 tons of Pittsburg
pig iron to birmingham. The English pa
pers remark that a few years ago this
would have more than ranked with the
sending of Goals to Newcastle, but that
conditions have so changed that the Ameri-
car iron firms can and do outsell the local
English furnaces, with the ocean and rail-
way frsight rates added.
Low Ocean Freight.
The English journals say that a phase of
the question fully as important as the
cheap manufacture of iron in America is
the present schedule of freight rates which
eliminates distance in commercial competi-
ton. 1t is said that the railway rates from
Pittsburg to Boston 200 miles) is about
the same as from Liverpool to BirminS-
ham coz miles further). 1t costs apparently
no more to send a ton of Yankee iron from
Boston to Liverpool than it does to send
ton of Birmingham-made goods from here
to the MerSey.
The remarkably low ocean freight rates
is laid to the increase in size and speed of
the ocean steamers.
All this goes to the advantage of the
American shipper. and the correspondent
of the London Mail states that so fierce
has the American competition become that
American iron is fast invading the German
market, where the native ronmaSterS are
advocating "exorbitant railway charges
from the seaboard to the interior to shut
out the transatlantic iron. This, however,
the Mail states, does not meet with the
English idea of free and unfettered com
merce.
The English Apprehensive.
In manufactured and partially manufac-
tured iron the American competition to the
English and continental trade is even more
threatening than in the raw product. and
the English journals comment apprehen-
sively on the invasion Of the English mar
ket by American manufactured bedsteads,
in which Birmingham has hitherto had
practical monopoly. In conclusion It is
said:
THE traders in the midlands suffer the
greatest injustice from excessive railway
ratlr g, inasmuch the railway companies
quote special through rates to American
merchants consigning their goods to Lon
don via Liverpool. Provisions are now
being sent from New York to London via
Liverpool at less rate than the same
Quantity of provisions can be forwarded by
raul from Liverpool to London by the Liv-
erpool merchants; ard when the Americans
are sufficiently up to date In their patterns
of bedsteads to do an English trade they
will be in a position to consign them to
London from the states at a less cost than
the Birmingham manufacturers are now
paying for carriage between Birmingham
and London.
1T Is hopeless to set, up a waterway
competition against the railway, for the
ha ri ba,
their rates fixed by the railway conference.
ut may be that the matters complained
of will never be thoroughly remedied until
such time as he government take over the
whole of the railway SYSTEM