The age-herald., 1900-09-22
THE REDUCTION 9e-
 IS FIFTY GENTS A Ton on Domestic Pig Iron
 Shipments. NOTHING ON EXPORT IRON Southern Iron Committee of Railroads Issue Official Notice-Birmingham Iron Producers Disappoint-
NOTHING ON EXPORT IRON

Beginning with October 1 a 50 cents ton reduction in freight rates on pig iron ship ments to Ohio and Mississippi river points will become effective. Official notice to that end was issued by the Southern iron committee yesterday.
 The Age-Hera of yesterday contained full account of the joint conference of Southern railroad officials and Alabama and Tennessee iron manufacturers held in Atlanta on Thursday. The article stated that 50 cents reduction had been agreed upon for domestic shipments, and that the railroads had declined to make a similar concession on export iron.
 Official Order
 The order issued yesterday reads as fol- lows:
 Effective October l, the rate from Bir- mingham to Louisville proper on pig iron shall be $2.50 per ton of 22oS pounds. The rate from Birmingham to Cincinnati for beyond shall be $40 per ton, with corre- spending reductions to other points, in- cluding South Atlantic ports proper Vir- ginia cities proper, Eastern cities and in- terior Eastern points. No reduction shall be made on rates on pig iron to the Gulf, South Atlantic or North Atlantic ports for export.
 Rates on blooms. billets and cast iron pipe, bar and manufactured iron and steel shall be adjusted on the established basis" As will be seen by reading the official mo- tice, the proportionate reductions will be made on blooms billets, cast iron pipe and other products of iron
 Local ironmasters are somewhat disap- pointed over the refusal of the railroads to grant a dollar reduction on domestic shipments and 50 cents on export which they had asked of the roads.
 It is the opinion of local furnace opera tors that the concession made by the roads will not relieve the situation to any appre- ciable extent, at least for period of sev- eral weeks. Speaking of the action of the railroad officials an official of one of the furnace companies said:
 But Little Help
 ''The reduction of 50 cents will not help us much at present Even a dollar reduc- tion on domestic shipments would not ma terally increase our trade with present conditions. What we wanted were cheaper rates on export iron where we had some chance of building up a good trade. Iron prices in Europe have broken dollar a ton in the past three days and thus to- gether with the increase ocean rates, will almost put us out of that class of business.
 Not Encouraging
 "There is practically no demand in this country for iron and the cost of produc- ton in the North is so low that we cannot, under existing conditions, compete with the manufacturers of that section.
 "The foreign field offered us the oppor tunity to dispose of our make at d reason able profit if we had been able to secure moderate freight rates to the seaboard and equitable ocean rates'
 An official of one of the furnace com panies is authority for the statement that freight rates on iron from Birmingham to European ports is over $5 per ton. Two months ago they were able to secure much even as low as s425 per ton. Since the beginning of September, however, ocean rates have been advanced considerably un- til now nothing under s is ever offered
 During the latter part of August and the first week in September there was con- siderable activity in export business, it being stated that bookings aggregated 10O, 900 tons. The movement in August, alone, exceeded 10000, a considerable gain over any of the preceding months of the present year.
 At preesnt the furnace yards in Alabama contain about 175,OO0 tons of iron as against part of June.