British Steel

The British iron and steel industry is at present very much a child of misfortune. Everyone's hand is against it except Premier Baldwin's--himself an important steel master--yet the Premier seems powerless to avert depression from his own trade.

To begin with, British steelmakers face a strongly unionized body of workmen whose wages are already much higher than those of competing German and French workmen; the British steel workers are now agitating a new pension scheme for themselves, the expense of which must result in higher prices for the output of British mills.

Secondly, German coke makers and French iron miners are now sufficiently en rapport to make probable shortly a union of the two complementary industries and consequently lower prices for Franco-German steel.

Thirdly, despite Premier Baldwin, the British Government refuses to protect home steelmakers by a tariff. Steel is considered a basic material, and must be had cheap. British steel costs about $10 per ton more than foreign steel. England, true to her free-trade principles, believes in buying the foreign steel when it is cheaper and letting her home manufacturers of steel go hang.

In 1924 Britain exported 1,000,000 tons less steel than in 1913, and im- ported 200,000 tons more. For the twelve months ending in May, 1925, Britain's steel imports cost her $100,000,000. Meanwhile the cost of doles and pensions has shot up from about 5c a ton in 1913 to $1.75 per ton today.