IN NINE YEARS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 80, 3 April 1912, Page 3

IN NINE YEARS.

♦ "A BILLION DOLLARS PROFIT." EARNINGS OF STEEL TRUST. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, 6th March. There was presented to the House of Representatives on the last day of February a- report by F. J. M'Rae, an expert accountant, representing the Government, showing that in the first nine years of its existence the United States Steel Corporation made a net profit of 1.029,685,389 dollais, or in excess of £200,000,000. The Trust had refused! to pioduce its books before the Congressional Committee that is conducting an investigation of its affaiie, and the expeit was authorised to 6tudy the hooka and report. The profits of the Trust during tho period referred to are equal to 13 dollars, or £2 14s per ton on finished product. Another tact brought out by the expert was that the firm of J. P. Morgan and Company, which organised the steel corporation, received in cash for its services approximately £14,000,000. The report of M'Rae reaches the conclusion that the steel corporation opera-tes in restraint of trade and prevents competition through a manipulation of prices. In this connection such information ie furnished relative to an interesting institution known as th© "Gary dinners." Once a month E. H. Gary, president of the combine, entertained tho heads of the different constituent concerns forming the Trust, as well as the heads of some supposedly independent steel companies. At these dinners selling and buying prices were fixed, and although no penalties were attached to violation of the declarations mutually exchanged, except a reputation for dishonour, the "gentlemen's agreements " arrived at were always observed. The so-called independent* were induced to reduce their production conformably to the estimate of tho reduction in the existing demand and to maintain prices, thus excluding free competition. The books of the company reveal also that competition was crushed out by the acquisition of a large number of plants that were never operated, and some of which were dismantled. The relations between the fileel trust and the harvester combine were further enquired into at recent sessions of the Congressional Committee that is investigating the former monopoly. That the United States Steel Corporation has been boycotted by the International Harvester Company during the laet five or six years vra« the startling statement made by Mr. J. A. Farrell, president of the steel trust. This assertion was questioned by members of the committee, inasmuch as the two corporations are interlocked by having to some extent the same directors. It has been generally supposed that the steel trust gave the harvest combine rebates. "Isn't it a fact that the Harvester Company gets larger rebates thaji are granted smaller concerns?" asked a committeeman of the president of the steel trust, to which the latter replied : "We ha.ye done no business -whatever with the International Harvester Company for five or six years.' The International Harvester Company has had a boycott on this corporation. It all grew out of a controversy between one of our smaller subsidiary companies and the Harvester Company. It started as a mere quibble Between fs&lasm&n, and resulted in a oompleite severance of business relations. There is nothing in common between us. We don't do business with them."