Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-03
STEEL PRODUCTION
CONTINUES QUIET
Outlook Has Few Factors oil
Hopeful Character, Trade
Review Finds.
BY the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, September 3-With
Autumn close at hand hopes for sea-
sonal recovery in the iron and steel
trade are waning, Iron Age says in its
weekly review.
In neither production nor demand,
the review says, ARE current tenden-
cies of such a character as to point
to an impending expansion of activity.
Pig iron output in August showed g
decline of II per cent from July, con-
tinuing the recession that began in
May. Steel ingot production, unchanged
from last week at 81 per cent, remains
at close to the lowest rate of the year
to date.
Iron and steel specifications, instead
of improving. are barely holding their
own. Operations in the motor car in
dustry are still on diminishing scale,
and betterment in railroad demand Is
apparently contingent en- the outcome
of the freight rate case now before the
Interstate Commerce Commission.
Construction Chief Reliance.
Action on considerable pending line
pipe tonnage has been deferred and
prospects for business in wire products
and agricultural machinery are clouded
by the abnormally low levels of prices
for farm products. The extent OF pos
Sible increases in miscellaneous indus
trial requirements in iron and steel is
still undetermined, since so many plant
vacations will not terminate until after
Labor day.
Construction. much of it of a public
character, looms up as the chief re-
lance of the industry for tonnage buSi-
ness Structural steel awards, at TO-
900 are the largest since the middle
of July. Increased pressure on
public works programs is now being
urged not merely as method of allevi-
ating unemployment, but as a possible
means of getting industry off of dead
center. Unless this or some ether way
is found to build up general business
activity and restore confidence. iron
and steel producers fear that retrench-
ment policies which began with the re-
duction of dividends and salaries, will
have to be extended 10 include wages.
Pig iron production in August was
l,280,526 tons. or Al 1903 tons a day,
compared with 1,463 ,220 tons, or A.
POI tons daily in July. The daily
average was the lowest since october,
1921. Seventy-Six furnaces were in
blast September l. or six fewer than
one month previous, II having been
in the first eight months of this year,
13.849,1l9 tons. was Al per cent smaller
than in the corresponding period in
1880.
Auto Production.
Automobile production. which de-
clined to the lowest rate of the year in
August, seems TO be headed for fur
Their recession in September. Last
months output of motor vehicles in
the United States and Canada is esti-
mated at IT'S, 900 to 10000 cars. as
compared with 223.l81 in July, and in
dications are that the September total
will not exceed 100000. The Chevro-
let and Plymouth schedules have been
sharply curtailed. and manufacturing
operations at the Ford rouge plant
are net likely to get into full swing until
late III the month
Only 10000 tons of new structural
steel projects came into the market
last week.
The iron age composite prices are
unchanged at 2.116 cents pound for
finished steel, $3.50 a gross ton for
pig iron and 5000 a gross ton for steel
scrap.