The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-09-20
INDUSTRIAL NEWS.

The Wall Street Journal makes the fol- lowing statement.
 The serious nature of the car shortage. due largely to the movement of grain in the west is beginning to be appreciated by the iron and steel trade, prominent representatives fearing that it will great ly retard deliveries of finished products between October and January | Up to date the shortage has had no worse effect than demonstrating what may be expected later when the western roads and the eastern trunk lines are strained to their full capacity to handle the rush of grain.
 An official of the United States Steel corporation says: We have not yet ex- perienced serious inconvenience from car shortage, but we expect it later on.
 Tt will doubtless interfere with prompt delivery of finished products and in that way may cause a congestion such as we experienced last winter"
 The independent iron and steel compa- nies and the steel corporation as well are experiencing trouble in getting their ores to furnaces because of labor differences in the lake fleets, which are expected to cut down the total output for the season to probably 29,O0O,O0O tons.
 This statement appears in the New York Commerclal:
 James M Swank, who has for many years been a recognized authority in the steel trade will say in the forth coming bulletin of the American Iron and Steel associations:
 Tt has been recognized for some time that the boom in the iron trade of this country which began with the early weeks of 1899 has come to an end. It would be chronologically correct to say that 1t ended with the close of the first half of 1903, when 1t became evident to all ob servers that the urgent demand for irop and steel in nearly all forms was slack ening and that some iron and steel prices were weakening.
 These indications of the subsistence of a boom that then was exactly four years and a half old have since been still more noticeable. But 1t Is an error to assume that the end of the boom means an end of prosperity for the iron trade. Consump- tion still continues al an enormous rate. few works have been closed even tempor- arily by a lessened demand for their products, and prices are simply being ad- justed to more normal conditions. This is the whole story up to the present time" The Wall Street Journal says.
 The years prosperity among the iron and steel makers of the south has re- suited in a big increase in the produce ton of coal in the Birmingham district. notwithstanding the strike of the miners. which resulted in four weeks likeness.
 The production of coal in Alabama for the year is estimated by state officials at 12.O00000 tons, which compares with 10. .329 479 tons last year and S9TO,6l7 tons in 1901.
 This Is an increase of 16 per cent over last years production and 45 per cent in- crease over the output of 1901.
 Practically the bulk of the increase is due to the development of the iron and steel industry in the Birmingham dis trict and the rapid increase In the output of pig iron and coke.
 The three chief steel makers of the dis trict-Tennessee Coal and Iron. Sloss- Sheffield and Republic Iron and Steel have made handsome net increases each quarter over last years returns