The sun., 1919-04-17
NEW STEEL TRADE
is GROWING LESS
Although Small Consumers
Are in the Market Scale of
Operations Declines.
SALES BY NEW SCHEDULE
Producers Do Not Show Much
Concern About Course of
Price Changes.

very Httlo new business has come
INTO the iron and steel market. but
producers are not concerning themselves
to any extent about the course of prices,
according to the weekly summary of
the market published by the Iron Age.
Consumers for small amounts are In
the market but tho scale OF operations
In the industry u gradually declining.
What sales are being made are for
the most part at rates established In
the schedule adopted At Washington late
in March.
While they wait for = final decision
OF the question whether the Government
will help or hinder the effort 10 en-
courage buying Of iron and steel" says
the Iron Age, producers are doing
little new business and are showing no
Ereat concern about the course OF prices.
The widespread propaganda OF the De-
partment of Labor and In many lines
OF trade and industry IN behalf of wage
and price maintenance has even robbed
an open market OF some of It's old
time terrors.
Meanwhile ultimate consumers OF
such products as wire and pipe are in
the market with their small needs,
JOSeeAo PeocAH0 ot w tAo
mills but nowhere along the line 10
any stock being accumulated. On what
they are selling mills are getting in
nearly all cases the prices named at
Washington on March 30.
The scale OF operations 10 gradually
declining. The Steel Corporations
plants in. the Chicago district are work.
ing at ~ per cent. Of capacity. against
so per cent. in the previous week, some
rail orders OF 1917 pushed aside by war
work being in process,
British Pig Prices to Rise.
THE Steel Corporations Pittsburg
district mills are doing better than the
average OF Independent plants. Most
of the latter are running at ~ to 90
per cent. OF capacity.
Higher prices in Great Britain have
been announced by pig iron makers. eff
fectiye for May and June. Domestic
and foreign business will be put on
the same level. about s826o per ton at
to-day's rate OF exchange. Termination
Of general Government control has been
definitely determined on there and indi-
cations are that British homo prices on
steel will be advanced on an average OF
$l150 a ton or to q parity with pres
ent export prices.
There is no labor trouble at steel
nldnIe, the ptOOlcrn OIL Ulhuhbcfb bclHk
to rotate the periods OF unemployment.
Tonnage rates have not changed except
IN sliding scale cmployments or in sheet
and tin plate mills and In pudding and
iron rolling mills. At Lebanon. Pa,
puddlers at two plants have struck
against a reduction from $12.75 to 1925
a ton, representing q decline from $40
cents to 2.35 cents in tho price OF bar
iron. At one New Jersey Iron mine
l. -zS Al
in wageG' si --
Tin plate has been bought for third
quarter delivery at a price 20 be fixed
about July / at tho market then pre-
vailing. Coke has received another cut.
25 cents per ton on furnace coke and
80 cents on foundry grades"
stagnation Spreads Rapidly.
The Iron Trade RevieW has the fol-
lowing to say in Ats weekly review OF
the iron and steel situation:
while Washington haggies over Gov
ornamental unity as 10 price policies,
stagnation IN iron and steel has spread
rapidly, bringing in It's train growing
line of idle furnaces and suspended mills.
New business. with some exceptions, has
become almost paralyzed. Some well
qualified observers describe tho past
week as the dullest period they have
witnessed, 1t Ia questionable whether
steel output in the country Is over 30
per cent. Some Eastern plants are
down to n one-third capacity rate. Blast
furnace operations are being reduced ac-
oordingly. There II small lingering
faith in the industry that any construc-
tive good can como now out OF tho
staoilizing price plan. no matter IL pres
ent complications can be adjusted
speedily, which 10 doubted.
"A more insistent demand for the
formal abandonment of the undertaking
and the reversion of open market con-
dit!ons 10 apparent. 1t Is plain that
producers cannot be kept bound much
longer to a proposal which msnifestly
has lost its power of effectiveness,
There Is a we'll defined belief in most
quarters that too much weight has been
given to the possibility OF railroad pur-
chases and that no matter how low the
price may have been placed the Rail-
road Administration would not nor could
not have been a liberal buyer The
lake ore market for the 1919 season
has opened unobtrusively. Several open
market sales have been negotiated
at sa.75 for non-bessemer or on the price
basis last in effect. These contracts
provide that the buyer 10 to benefit from
any lake or rail freight reductions Two
steel Corporation boats are bringins
down their first cargoes OF ore for the
year 1912"
. oanD-n r1NnxEE TTcc