ii6 JOHN FRANKLIN CROWELL 



metallurgical development of a country-, then the United 

 States again ranks first among nations. France, for example, 

 produces only twice as much manufactured steel as iron. Ger- 

 many makes five times as much steel as iron. Generally the 

 use of steel is on the increase as a substitute for iron, owing to 

 Its cheapness, efficiency, and durability. 



The world's annual production of pig iron, which forms 

 the basis of manufactured iron and steel, is 40,000,000 tons 

 in round numbers. Fully 27,000,000 tons of this is made into 

 steel products, and nearly 40 per cent of this steel is credited 

 to the United States. 



The position of the United States in its trade relations 

 with other countries has undergone no more radical change 

 during the past decade than as importer and exporter of iron 

 and steel. At the beginning of the decade, our imports were 

 valued at nearly twice the sum of our exports of these com- 

 modities. Now our exports are more than five times the 

 value of our imports of iron and steel. This turning of 

 the tide in the American iron and steel trade toward Europe,' 

 Africa, Asia, and Australasia marks the end of an old, and the 

 beginning of a new, regime, not only in our relations with our 

 competitors, but also in the economic position of this industry 

 at home. The general problem before the American iron and 

 steel industry is that of developing foreign markets systematic- 

 ally on the basis of maintaining the prices of its products at a 

 fairly, if not indeed a highly, profitable level. But the great 

 avenues of domestic demand, such as that of steel rails, are 

 no longer to be relied upon to take the major portion of the 

 product in question. The industry has outgrown the capacity 

 of the home market. Both industrially and commercially this 

 industry is so completely organized that it must enlarge its 

 markets to save itself. In this situation, it has three distinct 

 lines of policy open before it : (1) It can follow the two price 

 policy of getting all it can out of the home market, and having 

 irregular recourse to the foreign market at a price far enough 

 below the domestic price to carry off its surplus products as 

 they happen to accumulate. If it relies on the elements of 

 monopoly in its present position, it will continue to do this. 

 But this policy has already become the bane of our export 



