New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-06-09
COMPETITION IN IRON Products

The American Steel and Wire Company
nounces that it Will add several large furnaces
to it's plant, and make for itself the pig iron and
the steel required for it's output of wire
and nails. This is in effect recognition of the
fact that it is going to have serious competition
to confront. An extended review of the iron
business In THE Journal OF Commerce" men
lions two formidable competitors which are
pushing work large scale. The Sharon
Steel Company has for it's president Frederick
Buhl, who built the large open hearth steel
plant at Sharon Penn, which the Steel and
Wire Company has purchased, and with him is
John Stevenson, formerly superintendent Of the
Newcastle works, which were sold to the Steel
and Wire. The plant is to have great
capacity with all the latest devices for economic
ing labor and other cost. furnace turning out
six hundred tons day, and the skill of men
who have not been unsuccessful
But the Union Steel Company is also to build
works at Webster, Penn, thirty miles below
Pittsburg on the Monongahela River, the we'll
known bankers, Mellon Brothers, being largely
interested in the enterprise. and accord
ing to reports Mr. H. c. Frick is also
interested. This plant Is to be of a sim
liar kind. and it is said that it will be In
operation before January 1. These concerns are
going into the business to make money, and
they therefore intend to be able to take business
ton has not been at all confined to this line of
manufacture The Tin Plate Company was an
other of the great combinations which fell not
very far short of a monopoly in it's field. Not to
speak of several minor companies organized for
this manufacture. two mentioned having
been organized since July l. one with a capital
of So, 0OO, 900, and claiming patents and
processes far superior to those of any other
concern. In addition the old companies which
were not absorbed by the big corporation have
also been extending their plants. one having
added thirty tin plate mills within a compare
lively short time These merely samples of
the expansion now going on in almost every line
which a great combination has undertaken to
control
In wire and nails and in tin plates the great
combinations secured plants about able to sup
ply the entire quantity required for consumption
in this country. In fact, the Steel and Wire
Company has pushed its enterprise into foreign
markets also, and in ten months. ending with
April. the actual exports mainly by this COM
bination, were 1913 274 095 pounds wire, $685.
100 pounds wire rods, and 1852. 2O3 pounds
wire nails, with other items making over 30O-
100000 pounds. The tin plate works have
scarcely exported any products yet, the price
fixed for the home trade having been quite
high. But while new and powerful works are
entering the field as competitors, either will be
in position to seek the home the foreign
trade, with prospect that big foreign trade
will be necessary in each line of manufacture
to keep all the establishments at work. Owing
TO this extended demand, the quantity of pig
iron required may be found larger than has been
anticipated, for one Of the considerations which
have seemed Of especial Importance in the trade
is that the decrease in demand for finished
products, and the Increase in production of pig
iron by the finishing companies themselves
would leave a large surplus of iron produced by
the old furnaces for which there will be insult
ficient demand.
The truth is that none of the parties interested
VIII be able TO determine what relation the
supply OF pig iron Will bear 10 the demand until
the reduction of price to about normal range
mas given encouragement to home purchasers
NO one pretends to deny that the extraordinary
shrinkage in demand since last November has
been in large measure due to the high prices
asked for finished products. AS long as the de-
inand was constantly running far ahead of the
supply, so that the prices of materials were
being steadily forced upward the constant ten