In 1892 there was no dividend for the first year-half (because of a prolonged strike in the Durham coalfield) this triggered a renewal of previous complaints from shareholders that the company had sunk between two and three million pounds into docks at Barrow, but refused to give any indication of the profitability (or otherwise) of the docks...
The secretary of the FR denied that its low dividends were caused by injudicious expenditure on Barrow docks; without them there would be no dividend at all: "The docks have led to the development of many industries in Barrow and the establishment of many feeders to our line".
[62] The problem was foreign competition: "..the introduction of Spanish ore into England has led to a serious diminution of the receipts of the Furness Railway company owing to the reduction in price it has affected all over the country in pig iron and steel; and whereas
we used to send away nearly half a million tons of ore to Middlesbrough and other places at rates which gave us an average of 3s. a ton, we are now carrying that ore - in less quantities, I am sorry to say - to the furnaces at short distances, and we get an average of only 1s. a ton, Therefore it is not the docks which have reduced our dividends, but the introduction of Spanish ore and the altered circumstances of the trade."
[62] In 1894, it was reported that only 33 of the 75 blast furnaces in Furness and West Cumberland were working.