THE STEEL INDUSTRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3383, 15 January 1919, Page 58

THE STEEL INDUSTRY.

INTERESTING FACTS FROM AMERICA. , (Fapu Oob Own Corkespokdekt J AUCKLAND, January 9. Particulars concerning the, position of the steel in Canada and the United States, following on the cessation of hostilities, have reached Mr Theodore do Schryver, the Auckland representative of the Steel Company of Canada. The' writer states that he had learned in Washington that the entire stock of the Steel Corporation in its various warehouses did not exceed 51,000 tons. The prices of the finished products were controlled largely by the raw materials and labour. With labour predominant labour had risen in its earning power during the war, and would not return to its former level. Many people expected that prices would drop suddenly, as hostilities Lad stopped, and were exercised as to whether they should stop buying or hasten to sell. Dealing with the materials necessary for the manufacture of steel, he states that a supply of for the next six or eight months was in stock, but had been purchased as war prices and transported at war freights. Coke was high, with littfo prospect of lower prices for coal, labour, or transportation, while limestone had about doubled in price. The world had been bared of pig iron, and future demands for some time looked fully equal to the production. Ferro-manganese and alloys used in the making of steel had to be bought far ahead, owing to the war, and at four or five times their normal value; and scrap steel, which was used in large quantities for remeltinig', was more than double the price ruling in 1915.