STEEL ORDERS DELAYED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1700, 19 April 1917, Page 1

STEEL ORDERS DELAYED.

EFFECT OF WAR IN CANADA. ALL TRANSPORT CONGESTED. The inroads of the German submarines upon our shaping resourees is telling 1 more and more; upon New Zealand’s import trade, and on no bruneli of it more seriously than that with the eastern ports in Canada., upon which the Dominion greatly depends for its supply of manufactured iron and steel. One Auckland firm alone has at present orders placed with Canadian houses for steel and iron work to the value of £250,000, which are largely blocked by the shortage of shipping and the congestion on the Canadian railways. The sinking of the Otaki will accentuate the difficulty, for she was to have gone about this time to St. John to load New Zealand cargo, though it was, according to one correspondent, doubtful whether the state of railway traffic would enable sufficient goods to come forward to make up a full lading, and whether, therefore, her sailing would not be materially delayed. A letter from one Canadian house, dated February 17th says; —“Owing to considerable congestion on our railroads, a freight embargo on all export material has been declared. The congestion has been accentuated by the submarine menace starting on February Ist. The New Zealand Shipping Company advises that it is powerless to get any license, and unless the embargo ceases to be very soon, we are afraid very lillle stuff for New Zealand can go forward.” The same writer mentions that the Otaki was to be the February steamer from St. John, but that it was doubtful at the time of writing whether enough cargo would be forthcoming for her sail-

Another Canadian firm writes: — “Owing to the embargoes now existing on all export trade, everything is t ied up here,- and there is no possibility of moving freight whatever. The railways can give us no idea as to when the present situation will be relieved, so that as far as we are concerned we arc absolutely at a standstill,"

Yet another lirm says, writing on February 18th; “Our own output of steel is required tor munitions, so we are compelled to purchase our raw materials in the open market, principally in the United States. At present (here exists embargoes on all the railways to Montreal and district, unless the goods are required for munitions, so that we are entirely at the mercy of the railroads until they have relieved the (‘(ingestion that exists all along tin* railway systems, and, although the embargoes have been in existence for the past three weeks, there does not seem to be much sign of any improvement. Apparently the railways arc short of rolling-stock, both cars and locomotives, and, of course, the shorlage of labour makes it impossible Jo repair quickly any damaged engines that come into the shops. As a result, we lind ourselves to-day short of rods, bolts, coal, oil, spelter, staves for kegs, and a large variety of other articles which are needed to keep our plant in operation. Scrap iron is delayed in arrival, affecting our rolling-mill programme; pipe strips that have been in transit for six weeks or more are not here yet; win* rods are very difficult to obtain, and any falling-off in the output of our rolling wire-mills naturally restricts operations in our subsidiary plant, such as wire nail and cut nail factories, boll works, horseshoe works, etc. A general survey of the situation makes it very clear that until some improvement takes place in transport conditions we are no| fair to ourselves and our customers if we make predictions with regard to our outputs and deliveries of goods that are apt to prove over-optimistic." Then a Pittsburg firm writes on February 21st about (he effect of the winter cold upon the supply of ga.s, for both domestic and manufacturing purposes. “Many of the industries," says the writer, “have been obliged to close. The river has been low and frozen, whieh prevented the free movement of coal to our different plants. Car transportation has been bad, power for the movement of trains has been inadequate; in fact, everything that could retard the manufacturing and shipping of steel has been developed this winter." i