The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-31

tivity. The first being the enormous
 demand by the railroads for new
 equipment, the second the enormous demand from the building trade and
 the third the unprecedented output of automobiles. It must be remem-
 bered that these sources of demand are also responsible for secondary
 demand coming from allied indus
 tries.
 For the greater part of the year
 the output of iron and steel was limited only by the labor supply, in fact the country was experiencing
 general labor shortage and the
 building trades were so seriously af- fected that it became necessary to
 call halt on all building projects that could possibly be deferred. This
 was reflected almost immediately in the falling off of new bookings by the steel companies, although there was no reduction in activity of the
 mills for some time afterward. In fact there has been abnormal activ
 ity until the last two or three months. The effect of course was reduction in the thrilled orders. The peak of activity was reached in March when the United States Steel Corporation reported a backlog of 7,403,000 tons, total that had not been exceeded since January, 1921. Since then there has been gradual falling off until the November total, according to the report of December II, was 1869, 900 tons. The total on December 31 may possibly show a slight increase and estimated at 4,400,000 tons. If the turn does not come in the next re- port which will be issued on January II, 1t is believed to be very far off as new bookings have materially in- creased during the last month. There have been heavy bookings by the railroads in recent weeks of orders for steel rails and there are large additional orders over the market, as well as orders for new cars. The building program for 1924 will ex- ceed that for 1923, although the lat ter was the heaviest on record. The automobile industry has kept up a degree of activity far in excess of expectation and manufacturers are so confident of it's continuance that they are placing orders with the steel com panies for their first quarters supply of that metal
 Automobile Growth.
 It is just as well to call attention to the immense growth of the auto mobile industry. It is now the third largest in the United States having more than 100000 workers directly dependent upon it for a livelihood with much greater number in- directly dependent. At the beginning of 1923 there were approximately l4,500,000 registered motor vehicles in the world. of which Ss per cent were in the United States and Can ada, and the proportion of the an- nual world output is probably even higher for the United States and Canada together dominate the mar kets of most importing countries. The total wholesale value of 2,659,000 States and in American controlled plants in Canada in 1922 was s1,7S9,- 63S.000, passenger vehicles consti- tuting 90 per cent of the total num- ber During the first seven months of 1923 there produced 2,127,000 pas senger cars and 227.000 trucks. Regis tration of motor vehicles in the United States on July 1. 1923, was 13.0O2,000. of which 11.571,000 were private passenger cars. The total output for 1923 is expected to ex- ceed 3.000,0o0 cars.
 Pig iron output has shown a down. ward trend of late, although there has been some increase in demand within the past month. The total production. however, will exceed all records. The production for II months of 1923 was 37,13s,326 tons, a gain of 56 per cent over 1922. and of 10.1 per cent oyer 1920.
 Figures in tons of pig iron output as compiled by the Iron Age by are as follows: