Evening star., 1949-01-30
Weller.
Continued From Page C-1)

about 10 years to coast downhill.
If war came tomorrow, the Ungava
would be urgently needed. Mean
time, however, iron comes UP from
Chile safely enough-there being no
enemy submarines-by deep-water
ship, the cheapest transport. More
iron will be coming from Venezuela
soon. and Brazil has mountains OF
untouched iron, though deep in Its
interior.
Though the American steel COM
panies are not too hard-pushed yet
for ore, they don't want this iron
interloper from the snowy badlands
to be mother to a new brood OF
American competitors.
Because Mesabi's iron is bottled
up behind the shallow channel OF
the st. Lawrence and the mountain
barrier of the Appalachians, the al
most perfect monopoly of the Mid
die West has been unchallenged
Nature not only gave iron and coal
together to the Great Lakes Basin
but locked the door behind her.
Now nature presents the Cana
dians with a gift that undermines
her generosity to the Americans
Ungava ore, $50 miles from its sea-
port of Seven Islands, can go any,
where in the world nine months a
year. It's already outside the twin
barriers of the st. Lawrence rapids
and the mountains, and nothing but
lack Of capital can hem it into the
subarctic. Il
Steel.Makins Changes
Ungava's threat to the nested fur
naces Of the Great Lakes is increased
by recent improvements in IRON
smelling. The making of steel, as
craft and as science, Is free and
roaming around.
The steel mill has changed like
the old washboard and clothes
wringer. us become one contin-
uous operation. steel-making can
be set up far from ore, as long as
the ore is cheaply borne in deep
hulls. Iron ore tends to move to-
ward coal, a looser cargo which
costs more to move.
Smelling, too, is changing. The
use Of oxygen to attain new high
heats has made many OF America S
240 blast furnaces obsolete. Putting
the furnace under forced pressure
from above is another advance
These chan. IS have tended to cut
the value Of the old-style furnaces,
making new plants feasible in new
locations.
The Ungava giant walks into
irons family at an embarrassing
moment because the system of
charging the same price regardless
Of distance from the foundry-the
"basing point" system--has just
been tossed out by the Supreme
Court. The raw fact of having to
charge more for expensive iron, and
the rawer fact of charging less for
cheap iron confront the iron mas
ters.
Iron is little worried by President
Truman's threat, like Britain's, to
put the Government in the steel
business. which stems originally
from the Interior Department
American iron is making per cent
more than all the rest of the world
and using SO out of 96 million tons
capacity. The gray market in steel
is weakening and the demand be-
ginning to top off.
Canada's coastal furnaces at
Sydney, Nova Scotia, cannot use up
Ungava's ore. Ungava. turned loose
in America when steel is high and
wobbly, means a cutthroat war and
a drop in everything OF steel, in
cluding autos.
The defense departments OF Can
ada and tine United States, knowing
that the airplane and submarine are
the probable weapons of the next
war, hope that Ungava's iron goes
westward through the Great Lakes
rather than eastward to the open
Atlantic. Nothing sinks faster than
iron, as proved by Hitler's SUBJ
marines attacking conveys from
South America.
(copyright, 1s49. Chicago Daily News
Foreign Service.)
tn Head PISA