The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-03-27
EYES OF TIE WORLD
 ARE ON ALABAMA Birmingham District More Widely Advertised Than Ever WILL SET PRICES ON IRON Financiers and Manufacturers Are h. terested in the Mineral opuenee
 of This District and Present
 Healthy Comment.
 
WILL SET PRICES ON IRON


 more exact, substantial information about the marvellous mineral opulence of Ala bama than at any previous period--a broad assertion since the celebrated "Bir- mingham district has for many years figured extensively in the columns of both trade journals and newspapers. The de- gree of healthful publicity it Is now re- ceiving, however, overshadows that of the past, not alone in volume, but in precision or detail and in the standard of the med- ums employed.
 There are, for instance the 'insistent rumors touching an amalgamation of all tn eiron and steel producing concerns lh the iron and steel producing concerns in ening of the development of the yet un- touched fields which will cause the nation al importance of the Alabama metropolis to nearly approximate that of Pittsburg. Identified with this tentative movement are the names of some of the most fore most industrial promoters of the United Statesmen familiar with every turn of the iron and steel business and unaccus- toned to indulging in commercial hyper bole or inflated booms. The reflex infiu- ence of these reports, vouched for by aI- thorities of unimpeachable reliability, has drawn the attention of capital to the coal and iron assets of our neighboring state in a manner that bodes definite results, whatever the outcome of the project un- der discussion.
 A factor of little less importance in this direction Is the intelligent activity of The 4 e., m. most influential national exponent of southern industrial interests. Each issue for the last few weeks has contained a thoughtful, unhurried study of the vast future which lies before the state in an industrial and commercial sense. While in the main, of course attention has been concentrated on the mineral phases of the states resources, Its healthful financial condition and prosperity in other direc- tions have not been neglected. These arti- cles have bristled with live and accurate statistics, eloquent comparisons and de- auctions based on solid, unfancful prem ises
 New York papers, also of undoubted prestige, have recently given the pro- posed consolidation and it's inevitable outgrowth careful dissection and a fair. optimistic verdict. The New York Herald remarked in this connection few days since that the British tariff commission which, acting under MT. Chamberlain's ideas, made an inquiry into the cost of iron and steel production in Great Brit ain, Germany and the United States and reported to parliament last July, found among other things that the Alabama dis triet of this country was the cheapest producer in the world. With this for a basis, a union of the large plants, with fair capitalization and aboundant capi- tai for modernzing and constructing steel plants, might become the most inn portant factor in the iron and steel in- dustry of the world"
 To these matter-of- fact, irrefutable statements William E. Curtis, the Chicago Record Herald's correspondent, to whose southern tour of investigation we have referred previously adds the following comment in a recent issue of his paper:
 There are fifty furnaces and fifty-one coal mining companies in the Birmingham district and none Is situated more than eight or ten miles from the other. They do not finish much of the product here, but with the proposed consolidation all kinds of mills are promised. There are several manufaetories, but the great bulk of pig iron is shipped to Pittsburg, Chi cago and other manufacturing centers. They have only tried to do the easiest thing.
 Birmingham expects to outstrip Pitts burg within the next ten years and to dictate the price of every ton of pig iron and every ton of rails that is sold in the United States, If not in the world. The people here boast that today Birmingham makes the price for the United States. and frequently for the world, and they ask what can be expected from a place which ha ffDnac a fnIipb iron q d Pennsylvania and lacks only steel plants, which any man with capital can build
 If Alabama with the aid of these friendly and powerful champions, and lack of space forbds the citation of others equally trencnant, does not forth- with enter on its legitimate heritance, we have grieyously misread the intrinsic value of advertising where 1t is backed by conditions as tremendously real as those which exist in that territory.
 The assertion was made by knowing ones a quarter of century ago that Alabama would eventually dominate the iron and steel industries of the western hemisphere. if not of the world. It was received with scathing incredulity but the result of later, more exhaustive in- vestigation has confirmed the prediction and the pace of actual development cre- ated definite grounds upon which it is pOSSlDle 10 pTsulcdlt even DTONlSlD0dl statement of the appearance of the day What 1t means to Alabama and the south generally needs little amplifying
 Its arrival is as certain as the opera ton of fixed natural laws. Nowhere else in the world are the necessary con ditions as propitious as in Alabama. The ore and the coal rest almost within sight of each other, and equally close are the deposits of limestone for the fuxing process. II is as if the Almighty had arranged such a triple marriage be- tween the vital ingredients as left to the perspicacity of man only the perfunctory task of uniting them.
 When there shal lbe factory or roll ing mill for every foundry when the district shall enjoy m open waterway to the gulf as now protected and rail facii- ties to the gulf and the Atlantic as re- gently outlined in the Constitution. and when the Panama canal shall unlock the door to the Orient. we will see that commercial apotheosis of Alabama al- ready foreshadowed by the witnesses we have quoted
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