ABSTRACT
The author explains that some of the greatest fluctuations and highest prices coincided with the heaviest stocks, as in 1891, 1890, and 1889. The low and almost nominal stocks of 1900 also fell contemporaneously with exceptionally high and greatly fluctuating prices. In the interval between that period and the present date, prices have in many cases fallen to nearly their former level; but this does not apply to raw materials, nor does it generally apply to pig iron, which are the ultimate controlling factors in the iron trade. The prices of finished products have consequently been disproportionately low over a wide range of operations, and profits have been small, although in a number of cases economies in production have caused the disparity to be more or less compensated. The author has found that in some quarters there is a disposition to regard Great Britain as specially subject to serious variations of price.
