The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-12-31
COMMODITY
CONTINUED From Page Eighty

Europe as whole is producing much
less than before the war, although
Great Britain has been getting close to
her pre-war rate and Belgium has
fully recovered hers. The United
States, which has made admirabl
strides in coal production this year,
has come to produce nearly 10000 900
tons more per month than during 1913.
Our coal exports averaged 1906, 900
long tons per month during the first
quarter this year, slightly above our
pre-war average; but beginning with
June they reached new record highs
each month but one, until in October
we shipped 4,580000 tons. 1t is the
more remarkable since nearly 2,000.-
900 tons of that amount went to Eu-
rope, $4,000 tons going to France
alone. While our coal production has
been. making new high weekly rates
prices have been extraordinarily high,
but have suffered in sympathy with
the general situation.
Rubber Below Pre-War Levels.
Raw rubber appears to be in a weak
er position just now than any of the
more staple raw materials, just as
crude petroleum holds the strongest
position in the market. Between 10
Brazil was premier in the market, but
enormous plantations were laid out
then in the East Indies. and the rub
Der from there now controls the mark
ct These plantations came into heavy
bearing, just as war broke. so that
turning the ships over to war uses and
curtailment in consumption here and
in Europe helped to accumulate huge
stocks of the commodity. Thus it is
estimated that the rubber stocks in
Great Britain and this country in
creased from 100 in 1913 to / 800 in
September, 1920, while consumption
increased only from 100 to $50. Since
over 80 percent of our crude rubber
consumption goes into automobile
tires. the slump in the motor industry
has hit rubber. Rubber is one of the
few commodities which did not rise ap-
probably during the war, and this
year it has not only fallen to pre-war
levels, but gone much lower. First
latex crepe at New York averaged rs
cents in 1918, but closed the year near
II cents.
The SIackening Steel Industry.
The outstanding fact of the stee
year for 1920 was the price split be
| tween independents and the United
States Steel Corporation, which mean
| that each came TO sell the same goods
at vastly different levels While the
Steel Corporation stuck pretty faith
fully to the Industrial Boards scale o.
prices, the independents broke away
from that level completely. They
could sell at higher levels because
they could promise earlier delivery
| having much less business on thei1
books, and their prices often were
double and triple those of 1914.
AS the year-end slump in steel came
it is significant that only the indie
pendents suffered greatly. Before thu
end of the year, indeed. independent:
began to run out of orders and were
forced to scale all of their prices. ex
cept those for piping. down to the cor
poration's level. Their run fell to Al
percent of capacity, while the corpora
ton was still going over 80 percent
At the very end of the year independ
ents began to talk of shading the cor
porati6n's prices.
The year 1920 was not an especial.
prosperous one for steel. The big OF
ders came from demand for oil de
velopment and transport. for machin