The times., 1899-07-28
UNMEASURED PROSPERITY
The Prices of Steel and Iron Have
More Than Doubled.
The Orders Now Booked for Pig Iron
Sufficient to Keep the Furnnces
Going for the Rest of the Year
Enormous Profits on Capital In
vested i'm MiIis-what 1t All Means.

The iron and steel business of the year
1899 is to be one OF its wonders and per-
haps one of the crowning marvels that
are to usher in the Expansion Era" rhe
Importance OF its superb prosperity can
not be over estimated. 1t is one of
Americas proverbs, as old as Independ-
ence, that as the iron and steel business
thriyes SO thrives the country. AS soon
as stagnation begins to give way to ac-
tivity the renewed demand for manufac-
tured products begins. Prosperity cannot
be built without iron and steel for founda-
ton and for TOOLS
The meaning of prices advanced 100 per
cent over last year for pig iron and for
steel. OF blast furnaces running couble
shifts of men and still turning away so
per cent of their orders, of new bias, fur
naces and new mills and iron works of
every description, appearing every week,
Is that there is prosperity in the country
and far larger prosperity in sight. When
a Birmingham despatch states that pig
iron is shipped away from the furnaces
while it is still hot there is an immense
suggestiveness of the demand for the tools
and foundation of business activity.
Prices are one indication. The price of
pig iron is now $40 ton to factories that
have depended on securing their iron at
| market prices rather than contract for
it at s14 and SIG, month or two ago.
But even these prices are of no avail in
many cases. on account of orders ahead
for several months untitled. 1t is doubt
| full If $50 a ton offered in Pennsylvania
| would secure immediate delivery of any
! large quantity of pig The price of a year
| or so ago was IS a ton. The advance has
been $50 per cent. Steel billets year ago
| were selling for less than pig iron sells
| for now. Yesterdays quotations in New
| York We're: Northern No. ! Foundry. s2O.50,
and Southern No. Foundry S1S.75.
| Steel rails are quoted at $50, billets at
| 1884, and sheet bars at $3.50 a ton, an ad-
vance of 100 per cent or more in each case
| over the prices of year ago. In all the
manufactures of steel from billets and
| rails to farming implements and machinery
! the advance has been nearly, if not quite,
in the same proportion. And yet the de-
mand is so great that the experts are pre-
| dieting that prices viii be as high, if not
! higher, in the months to come.
| The demand cannot be compared with
| that of last year, in any legitimate way.
| The facts are that all over the country
the users of steel wait weeks and months
| to have their orders filed, and that in
! every step from the mines to the finished
1
of their filling. Orders are booked for all
the pig iron that can be produced up to
| the end of the present year. and many or
| ders are coming in for the early months OF
next year.
| 1t is conceivable that temporarily there
may be a pig iron famine. Blast furnaces
have been abandoned in recent years for
lack of business. The people that have
continued 10 run have been entirely us-
| fnr ba M In Pc
sylvania, Ohio, and Alabama there is al
ready such an impossible gap between the
orders to fill and the ability to fiji them
| that it is feared some of the smaller man
ufacturers will be obliged to shut down for
want OF pig. They are living from hand
/ to mouth" because they failed to contract
ahead in April and May, hoping for lesser
prices later. This condition cannot exist
for long however. 1t is not believed that
it will even impede business much more
than at present. Fires are being lighted
| in the disused furnaces and new furnaces
built that will supply thousands of tons a
| day.
1t is estimated that on every ton of pig
| iron that is sold at $40 ton a profit of
| $10-or 100 per CENTS made, despite ad-
| vances in ore prices and in wages. 1t is
! estimated that on every ton of steel rails
manufactured from $40 pigiron and sold at
the big new steel and iron trusts is that
! they are earning and per cent ON their
| preferred stocks and 10 ana 20 per cent
on their common stock, which is known
| to be largely water stock, representing
no capital. If these profits could be COM
| puted on actual money invested 1t is said
| that they would show 80 per cent year
| at least. ID
| The statistics of Americas exports of
iron and steel are most interesting though
| they show very little of the present boom
| in the trade. In the eleven months ending
| May 81, the latest statistics available. the
export was $S4 .S73. S42 This, compared
with S63. .235 O29 and with S52, 1871 IFS for
! the corresponding months of the two pre-
vious years is gain of 60 and of 30 per
1 cent.
| The statement is made on every hand
| that no new contracts are being made
I abroad because the American demand can
not be filled. When the new furnaces and
! factories are running and orders on this
side are not too far ahead the foreign
field will be wider than it ever was before.
Russia is to be supplied with millions OF
TONS for rails, and armor. and guns. The
gold mines of the Transvaal are so rich
that railway projects are springing up to
! network the entire south of Africa with
! railways. China and Japan are to build
| thousands of miles of railways in the next
| few years. to say nothing of the immense
demand they will make for general iron
and steel manufactures. Egypt is begin
/ ming an era of railway building. and
America will be able to get a very large
share CT this greatest demand the world
has ever seen.