CANADA'S IRON INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4734, 16 August 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

CANADA'S IRON INDUSTRY.

A REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT. With local iron production as an industrial possibility of the near future, some facts given by a contemporary as to the development in this regard in similarly-situated Canada are interesting. It is 170 years ago since the first iron furnace was fired in Canada. Yet nothing was done to use the vast treasures of the Dominion till about ten years ago. There are now four great iron companies at work in Canada. They havci amongst them 14 completed furnaces and eight in course of building or projection. Her annual in built, or budding furnaces for turning out pig iron is 1,090,000 tons. TheCanadian product last year was three times as large a, that of the year before. Canada consumes 800,000 tons of iron every year. She produces as yet only n third'of it: but she will soon overtake her own roquireliionts, even though tin v largely expand. She is ■now* in a position to mine and manufacture iron at a cheaper rate than can ho done oven at Pitt-burg. She paid last •year in bounties a sum of £70.000 for the production of ‘115,000 tons of pig iron. The object of the Dominion Parliament in opring the bounties was that they should be to furnace builders what subsidies are to railway companies or subventions fo steamship companies. Tho. bounties are designed to gradually taper off, and expire in 1907. Tito cost of getting toegtber at Pittsburg, in the United States, the necessary materials of coal, ore and limestone for making a ton of pig iron is IGs 3d. Owing to the rcci-ut developments of certain Canadian mines, and the shorter distance of transit, this can bo easily beaten at some of the Canadian furnaces. The Dominion Iron and Steel Company can mine 0000 tons of ore per day in Newfoundland, carry it 425 miles to their furnaces at a little town named Sydney, and land it there at a cost of 5s Od per ton. Tho ore runs 54 per cent, in iron: therefore tho cost for the materials of a ton of pig iron will be only about 11s in Canada, as against IGs 3d at Pittsburg. Tho little Canadian town of Sydney bad, ten years ago, a population of only 2500. Now it has 15.000. Tho reason is that about 4000 men are employed in the Dominion Steel Company’s works, and tho trades necessary for their supply make up tho population. There are now eighteen rolling mills in Canada, and two more in course of construction. The Dominion imports at present about £5,400,000 ■.'■ortb of iron and steel goods. Most of that, it is expected, will soon be made in Canada. The system on which tho Dominion Government pays its bounties for each ton of pig iron is as follows, ih dollars:

Tlio Algoma Steel Company, like the Dominion Company, employs about 4000 men. Its steel rail mill lias a capacity for making GOO tons a day. The company has a, contract for supplying 35,000 tons of rails F er y° ar to tno Can " adia.ii Government. The Nova Scotia Steel Company began under another name 30 years ago. But foreign competition kept it from success, and it was net till 1892 that the company under tho present name got to work. Its ores are so rich that it is able to quarry 3500 tons a day for 37 cents per ton, and this can be put on board vessels lying at a special shipping pier at the speed of over 2000 tons per hour. The Canada Iron Furnace Company is in close touch with the iron mines of Lake Superior. / Its works at Radnor Forges are said to turn out a quality of iron and chilled castings unequalled in Sweden or the Tlnitcd States. ,

The Cramp Steel Company, the Hamilton Steel and Iron Company and the Deseronto Iron Company, the Grantham Iron Works, and the Canada Foundry Company are other industries, all contributing to the sum total of the great Canarian development of iron.

From V rora M: achine Poreigr l For Ore. Ore. Steel. Up to April. , 1902 3.00 2.00 3.00 Up to July, 1C03... 2.70 1.80 2.70 Up to July, 1904 2.2.5 1.50 2.25 Up to July, 1905 l'.Ge 1.10 1.G5 Up to July, 190G 1.05 .70 1.05 Up to July, 1907 .00 .40 .60