THE AMERICAN STEEL TRUST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 10 April 1901, Page 42

THE AMERICAN STEEL TRUST.

The real aim of the new Steel Trust (writes the New York corespondent of the Sydney Herald) is to grasp rontrol of the iron trade of tht whole world. Ten years ago, about 200 members of the English iron and steel trade came to America at the invitation of Mr Carnegie, to hold a meeting here and incidentally study American industries. At that gathering Mr Hewitt was scoffed at by his own. countrymen for saying that iron would be made in America for Bdol a ton less, and by his English cousins for saying that America had the better chance in the race for supremacy in iron production. Statistics show that he erred only on the side of modesty, for it is now quite plain that even in an. era of high prices America is far in the lead, and is making enormous profits while most European concerns are earning only a fair percentage. The new trust know that great additional economies m production are still possible. At present the various rival plants all mako nearly all leading forms of ircn goods : and evidently it would be cheaper to make rails at one place, girders at antoher, and so on. Yet more evidently it will be a saving to avoid keeping in stock at each plant a supply of each thing likely to be asked for. The trust will keep waiting in stock ju«t enough and no more. Then, for oversea business the trust can afford to keep its own rlett. and TOisibly also maintain its own foreign entrepots, and will thus be freed from the petty extortion of the foreign shipowners and of tho foreign commission agent*. As to both theso latter abuses. American merchants have tnlp., of woe to tell that would move every upright soul to indignation. Ot course, foreign countries can shut out American non a-id steol by sufficiently heavy tori To but in a wrr of tar'ff- it need hardly be said that the potential position ot the United States — importing only luxuries and exporting things like cotton, which other countries cannot do without' — is very strong All the reciprocity treaties, by the way, hive been held up by the Senate — possibly, among other reasons, because Senators friendly to the peaceful conquest of the world by American industrial methods are not quite sure whether the time to pass them has yet arrived To some noble minded men the spectacle o£ vast power such as is involved in the control of the world's iron trade lodged in the hands of a few men or possibly of one man, and those men or that man of perhaps a quite sordid type, is very repellent But the man or men exist only as chief or chiefs of a preat clan of aotive, thrifty gatherers of stored power — ■ capital, — and the greater croitalist is often only too glad when these auxiliary powers, who share equally with himself in tho profits, are willing to share also ia. the incidental expenses incurred in. securing success. Ordinarily, as everyone knowa, the leader tries to recoup himself for such expenses by speculative purchases of stock when victory is near, or by speculative sales when victory is remote, but there ought to be nothing very dreadful in this to the bona fide investor.

In the main, the men who organise these great strokes get only a small percentage for themselves, and not infrequently in time of trouble are utterly ruined, while the mere investors, after a season of stress and storm, reap a handsome profit. And when the great men die their wealth is either divided or, even if held together, passes into hands too feeble to increase