The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-02-24
HIGH COST OF LIVING GUT AND AMERICAN MANUFACTURERS HELPED
 BY NEW TARIFF DECLARES SECRETARY OF COMMERCE REDFELD

The Bureau of the Census reports that the cotton spindles operated during January, 1914s were 31,112,72S as compared with but 30.359,8 ,843 in January, 1913.
 The surplus of freight cars has ceas- ed to grow. It commenced about the
 decreased by about five thousand cars.
 It, would be easy to add from nu-. smerons sources to those favorable statements.
 have found in the last fortnight the reports of inproving business so
 many and so general that it has been. Impossible for me to consider them all.
 , WEATHER FAVORS FARMERS.
 Among other elements that count
 for confidence is the fact that the weather in the great agricultural States .was in inc early part of the
 winter such as permitted the farmers
 giving due attention to- their soil,
 while the winter wheat belt, in which
 a larger acreage than usual has been
 sowed and in which the plant was at
 last accounts in good condition, is we'll
 covered with snow, a circumstanee which is for the present wholly favor
 able. From the conditions thus far |
 crop no unfavorab1e prophesies can
 be drawn
 The unified tonnage of the United
 States Steel Corporation on January s1, 1914, was 4.600,0O0 tons, an in
 crease of $50 1000 tons over the un-
 filled tonnage at the close of Decem-
 Der and larger than the untitled ton
 mage at the close of any month since September.
 Hooking back over the record of un- filled tonnage for this company we find that the amount unified at the close of last January was greater than at any time between June 3O, 1910, and November 30, 1911, and that in deeed, taking the quarterly reports Of the company as a. basis there were but four periods from the Close or 1907 to the close of I 911 in which the unified tonnage was as large as at the close of January last
 UNTITLED TONNAGE GAINS. 1 It is important also to note that reckoning by the ten-year period the record shows that there is an aVera ge decline in January of 105,000 tons. The increase in the unified tonnage during January of the present year is, I'therefore. about 430. 900 tons better thah the normal for 10 years past. Moreover, there is evidence that a number of deferred orders are still to tcone, and those best informed in f. nancfa1 circles state that it will not be surprising if month hence the state ment for February shall show another gain in the thrilled tonnage There is in the above record nothing to cause concern, especially since the Steel Corporation reports an increase ofsbookings of 10, ,000 tons daily in the first half of February as compared with the same days in January. True, the present thrilled tonnage of which we are speaking is not as large by 1000 s00O tons, or even more, as 1t was during the winter months at the close of s12 and the beginning of 1915 There is therefore no boom and T am very glad that there is not. It seems to ne better for the indus try and the eo4ntry that the recovery from the slight Repression of the last fall should be gradual and regu- lar than, that it should expand too fast use the word z slights' depression ad- visedly, for at the lowest point Of the
 recent winter the unified orders were greatly in excess of those for almost the entire year 1911, and if the low point, of December 31, 1910, when the thrilled tonnage was less than ?, 700,- GOO, be taken as a basis of comparison it will be clear that the low point of the recent fall was over a million and a half tons in excess of the lowest record. an excess in favor Of the low est point Of the last autumn of over fifty per cent. NOT AFFECTED BY TARIFF In other words. if the tarin were by any thoughtful person considered to be a controlling factor in the condf- ton of the steel market, such a per son so thinking, must deal with the fact that the lowest point of unified tonnage since the new tariff went into effect was a million <and a half tons greater, or over fifty per cent. great CT, than a low point reached at 9 time while the old tariff was still in full force and effect.
 It was quite the custom for those who were bred in the doctrine of in dustriaI fear and in a belief in Amer
 ican incompetence to say that the re- suit of lowering the tariff wall would tbe to flood our markets with the pro- ducts of what they were pleased to call the spauper labor of Europe"
 The fact is and has long been known l to be the fact by all who have given the subject thoughtful attention that the labor cost per unit of product of Il the highly paid labor of America is I often cheaper far than is the labor
 cost per unit of the so-calIed cheap labor of Europe Instead of Amer lica having to dread the inroads of
 foreign steel into her markets, it is 1.-the foreign competitors who have us | to fear, for it is we who have shown the strongest competing power and fl 1 is our competition that is dreaded lin the places where the great indus I trial rival nations meet
 | As this was written friend recent l " returned from Brazil came to ny l desk and as spoke to him of what was in my mind to tell you he said: | T brought home with me but a short 1 time ago an order for steel from Bra