New Britain herald., 1917-10-04
Steel and. Pig
 Iron Markets
The Iron Age says:

AAAS u oiA <Ae3S oeJs''
 The steel trade has been given up
 wholly to a discussion, at times >ex- cited, of the terms and effects of the agreed prices on six products as an- l nounced from Washington, but as yet
 little light has been shed on the situa-
 ton. Buying and selling are practi- cally out of the question:, and steel committees of manufacturers have been in daily session in New York this week working out prices on the l full line of products in proper rela- 1 tion to those already fixed. Another | conference at Washington will follow l and next week the President will an- nounce prices on the various grades of pig iron on semi-f1nished steel and a long list of rolled products.
 Many manufacturing users of steel have urgently asked when the new prices will be quoted to the public, whether contracts at higher prices will be readjusted, and what chance private business will have as the Gov ernment closes in upon the mills with an increasing volume of priority or ders. In all the confusion it is clear that. the new prices will figure but little in general business for weeks. The de- crees of the priority committee at Washington really control the indus | try and while Government demand centers on a few lines, that control affects the supply of steel available for other finished forms On the question of contracts manufacturers quite uniformly answer that these are to be enforced in the same way as the Lever act provided for the carrying 1 out of fuel contracts.
 Foundry pig iron sales on the $33 basis have been negligible. The larg- est reported is of 2,00O tons of No. 8 | iron at $32 at eastern Pennsylvania. | furnace, this being in line with $33 l for No. foundry. No new sales of Bessemer or basic iron were made, but 1 the announced September averages of ! $45.45 on Bessemer and $41.34 on bas- l ic at Valley furnace indicate that sales at the new prices late in the l month were enough to pull down the average materially.
 Some producers of Southern iron expect to adhere to a $33 Birming- l ham basis, in spite of a s4 freight to ] the North, where the same price is to
 prevail, arguing that the supply of 1 iron will not be equal to the demand. Ahe fact that only manufacturers have agreed to the new prices has l brought up the question of the job bers' margin and some regulation l there is looked for. Already 1t has 1 been decided at Washington that coke 1 brokers may charge a commission above the $6 price.
 | In finished material further large purchases have been made by the Government at the new prices, and the British Governments negotiations for 1 400, ,00O tons of shell steel is of special ! interest. The Washington Govern 1 ment has figured on an unprecedented l scale in the machine tool market, and 1 contracts just reported aggregate many millions of dollars.
 That the established prices may not I uniformly prevail is indicated by transactions in which unheard of ex- l tras have been paid, particularly for l plates. There is no provision. more, 1 over, against sales of rejected war
 material as scrap att prices higher 1 than the schedule. ' | A notable development of the week are the wholesale resignations of iron l and steel manufacturers from commit 1 tees of the Council of National De- 1 fense, because of questions again raised as to the legality of such ser vice in view of Government contracts
 with steel companies. The manu- | facturers' committees now making up
 new price schedules are acting as com l mittees of the American Iron and l Steel Institute.
 ] Pig iron production again fell off