The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-29
Every Blast Furnace and Steel Mill Is Operating at Capacity, But Demand Cannot Be Satisfied
STATEMENT ISSUED
 TO THIS EFFECT BY
 JUDGE E. H. GARY
Due to Sudden and General Revival Beginning Last July-NO Indication of Let-Up in Near Future

New York, October 2S.-So
 great has been the sudden and
 general revival in the Amer
 ican iron and steel trade,
 authorities said here today,
 that with virtually every blast
 furnace and steel mill in the
 country working night and
 day to capacity, the demand
 for iron, steel and steel pro- ducts cannot be satisfied and it lis almost impossible to buy, for immediate delivery, pig iron, scrap or ingots in sizeable quantities.
 The revival that began about July has been coming on rapidly, with de- luge of orders since the middle of Au- gust, and may not let have reached it's high mark. Within these three months the price of pig iron. long regarded as | the barometer of trade has increased approximately s5 per cent and that of steel and steel products-except steel rails about 10 per cent
 At the present time the demand
 for pig Iron and for the various l lines of steel Ia i'm excess of the 1 producing capacity of these fur-
 nnces and mills of the United states.r seads stas<A,ent f~sued
 today by Judge Hilbert II. Gary. 1 chairman of the United states Steel l corporation. .'rhc manufacturers I are unable to make deliveries en- tirely satisfactory to the pur-
 chnscrs with respect to n large ma l jority of the different kinds of nn- ished steel.
 l "rherc k nothing to Indicate | that there will he decrease In the demand for any of these products l for sometime. While prices received l nre still low, they have been and are increasing and apparently will go higher so that fair and rcason- l able profits may he expected. GOT course. even satisfactOry l conditions are more or less affect l cd by war business, sO-calicd, yet 1t Is undoubtedly true that there Is a better feeling throughout the 1 general iron and steel tOday than l had been experienced for some l years past"
 Experts who have followed tho rising l fortunes of iron and steel during the year asserted today that the volume of business, both domestic and foreign. is more than double that of q year ago, and that there are today 115.o00 men em- ployed at iron and steel plants through out the United States who were not on the pay rolls a year ago. This Is about l 60 per cent increase The reason for the l increased number of men employed being dsproportonate to the volume of busi-
 ness, they assert, is that during dull times many men are retained to make repairs. clean up and do order jobs. 1 The fires have been lighted in virtually
 every blast furnace in the United States
 To find parallel for the greater activ-
 | ity in the iron and steel trade, it was said l today. 1t was necessary to go back eight
 years. to the middle of 1907.
 | Steel and steel products are rolling out
 of the mills today at the rate of to-
 000.00e tons a year, 1t Is conservatively
 estimated and iron is being manufac-
 tured at the rate of 40000.0o0 tons. l Prices have increased somewhat slow \ ly, 1t is said. but taere seems to be every l indication that further rises are on the way. At the present time 1t Is estimated there are employed in the producing end of the industry approximately 525,000 men,