A BOOM IN THE IRON TRADE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 39

A BOOM IN THE IRON TRADE.

In the last issue of the “Forum'’ there is an article by Mr Archer Brown on the “Revival and Reaction in Iren,” explaining that the iron and steel industry of America has, within the space, of a year and a-half, witnessed two movements, each unexpected, sensational and farreaching fin consequences. The first -was tlie great upward swing of prices m 1899 ; the second, the headlong plunge downward in 1900. The oldest and wisest in the trade clid not anticipate the “boom,” nor believe in it until it was well under way . and the most conservative were taken by surprise at the suddenness and extent of tlie reaction. After giving the details of these movements, the writer expresses his conviction that the American iron and steel industry, instead of having readied its climax, is on the eve of a greater development than anything the world has seen. In support of this belief he declares that the industry is absolutely impregnable, so far as the rest of the world is concerned; and lie concludes his survey of the prospect by stating that the possibilities of the future of the iron and steel industry of Amei’ica sometimes engage the imagination of our technical writers.

If we base our calculations upon the ratio of growth of the past, we quickly run into figures that stagger the mind. Nearly half a century ago, before America had reached the half-million-ton mark in production, Air Abram S. Hewitt, in an address before the American Geographical Society, predicted that the world would make 28,000,000 tons pigiron in 1895, and 48,000,000 tons in 1915. On this basis the output for 1899 should have been 35,000,000 tons, but it actu-

ally reiaclied 40,000,000 tons, and the consumption, gauged by depletion of stocks, was nearly a million tons. more. In 1890 Mr Edward Atkinson estimated the world’s pig-iron output of 1900 at 40,000,000 tons. Both he and Mr Hewitt merely used the mile of doubling output in every twenty years. If the same law is to hold in the future, the world will require 80,000,000 in 1920; and if America maintains her rate of progress/ relatively speaking, she will supply much more than half of it. That would mean trebling in the next two decades our already vast plant of furnaces, steel works, rolling mills and iron foundries, as well as the product of our ore and coal mines. The most- optimistic believer in American destiny and progress can scarcely bring himself to these figures. But we must not be too hasty.in rejecting them. Air Hewitt has been quoted recently as saying that the world is practically revbuilt three times in a century. We are now demolishing in New York the first iron fire-proof buildings erected here thirty-five years ago, replacing them with* modern structures. We have scarcely commenced to use steel m ordinary house construction, Germany being far in advance of us in this particular. Every day new usds of iron and steel are found, and construction of every character is yearly growing heavier? One concern now takes from the Carnegie Company a thousand tons a day of steel plate to use in pressed steel cars—an industry unknown until Qwo years ago. The cry in every part of the world is for more ships to transport the rapidly growing commerce. No one doubts that the United States, in spite of its poor record of sLip-building, since the war, is destined to fill a great role in the building of the merchant marine. Those who have watched the progress of construction of new ship

existing plants at Philadelphia, Newbort News and San Francisco, are aware that the Clyde and Belfast builders are soon to have rivals in the full sense of the term. A great ship in these days might almost be said to contain nothing but steel and iron. The preparations for war by most of the nations of the earth are on ail ever-increasing scale, and the great mass of the materials required in the manufacture of ordnance and small arms comes from our steel works and foundries. In a recent address Mr Edward Atkinson, full of the spirit of expansion, again dealt with the future of the iron and steel industry. He stated that the extension of railroad lines in this country in the next fifteen years would carry the mileage from 200,000 to 300,000 miles j and President John Iv. Co wen, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, declares this to be ' conservative, if the construction Gf electric lines be included. The era of bridge building has just begun. Ail authority on this subject stated recently that the requirements of tlie South alone for bridge-building material would enormously increase in the near future. Scarcely a railroad bridge south of the Ohio and Potomac rivers is strong enough to-day to support a train of the new 100-ton cars with the massive locomotive required to pull them. Tlie Southern people have been content until now to ford tlieir streams when travelling in the country,* but, in the past year or two, with steadily increasing wealth, a. demand has sprung up for improved roads, and for bridges to correspond. A hundred other illustrations might be cited of the tendency of the consumption of iron and steel ‘to grow not at the normal rate of population and general manufactures, but in an accelerating ratio.