The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-03-24
Fixing Steel Prices Too High to
Find q Market.


! Steel producers have fixed prices
for the rest Of this year to the sat
isfaction Of themselves. the Depart
ment Of Commerce Industrial Board
and the Attorney General Of the
United States. The Department Of
Justice will not prosecute the pro-
ducers for their price fixing agree
iment. The Industrial Board will
recommend the new schedules to con-
sumers as "fair" prices. The price
fixing producers will try to sell their
product.
So far, so good. But unless the
producers have fixed the price to the
satisfaction of consumers they will
not sell their steel.
The business that is ahead of
American industry is normal bust
ness. Either it must be. done on
something like a normal basis or 1t
will not be done at all, price fixing
agreements or no agreements fair"
prices or not, the Attorney-General
concurring with the producers or the
Attorney General trying to send the
price fixers to Jail.
And the hard, cold fact about the
new steel prices Is that they still are
some 80 per cent. higher than the
ten year average before the war. To
argue that steel condition like this
is normal, that 1t Is within spyglass
distance Of normal, anybody would
need to be prepared to argue that all
war prices and all war conditions are
within a shade Of being normal as
a permanent national institution for
the rest of time.
When buyers are clamoring for prod
ucts the producers can make prices
TO suit themselves. When producers
are clamoring for business they must
sell to suit the buyers. The successful
merchant when his business or any
part OF his stock comes to a stand
still never hesitates to get 1t moving
again by such deep cutting of his
prices that buyers will not only come
but come on the run to his market.
Then when his business is in full
swing again he works out a readjust
ment on a new baels-a basis of a
living thing, not a dead thing. Manu-
facturers caught in the same predica-
ment must do the same thing If they
don't they must die of dry rot.
The copper producers, with their
business stopped dead short. knew
they must find market at any hazard.
They did not find It, they did not try
to find it, just shade below the high
level of war prices. They slashed and
slashed until they were actually .
centsp below the pre-war average of
several years. Consumers needing
copper were eager to buy 1t on that
basis because they knew that 1t could
be used probably at once. They were
eager to buy 1t for future use. because
they knew that on tina { basis they could
use 1t probably at any tlme-because
they knew that the very use Of copper
IN growing NOiune WOulu SEM the
price sooner or later much higher.
In peace times, striving to start up
peace business, steel will not be
bought that ca2Pot esY'ed at profit
At only n little lower than war prices
the building trades cannot use steel
ut a profit. The railroads cannot.
The manufacturers OF farm nipple
ments cannot. The makers of ma
chinery for textile mills, for mines,
for general productive industry can
not. Nobody but the man in des-
perate emergency can use steel now
on anything like war basis. That
sort OF consumption will not be for
the next year, or for the next two
years, n drop in the bucket.
The steel price fixing way up in war
cloud heights at such time as this
isn't good enough economics, isn't
good enough business, to find a market
"A big broad, national market which
would drive the particular steel in
dustry at full speed, give momentum
to general industry from sea to sea,
pack payrolls, swell business and send
the country bounding along the old
glad road Of prosperity.