THE IRON FIELDS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1983, 29 May 1919, Page 1

THE IRON FIELDS.

WHAT THEY MEAN TO FRANCE. A prominent French, mining engineer, M. Ch. Marquet, emphasises the striking industrial and commercial significance of the rcstcratum to France of the iron fields taken by Germany in the -seventies. He predicts that the German pig iron output, which was 19,000,090 tons in the last twelve months before the war, and was rapidly growing, will fall to 15,000,000 tons, whilst that (■- N-..A A in? roused from 5.000. tons to 18,000,000 tons. The restitution of Alsace-Lorraine i wid puf France once more in pos- j i n o" 'he f .rot iron oro A, A | in Europe, with the addition of thy Lorraine iron am! steel works. This iron basin of what is called French Lorraine covers 150,000 acres. The deposits are estimated at 3,000,000,000 tons. German Lorraine has an iron field covering 98,000 acres, and is estimated to contain 1.830.000. tons. 1\ it h the occupation of (he whole of Lorraine, plus the existing French deposits, France will own over 5,000,000,000 tons of iron ore. Germany will be left with 1,777,000,000 tons; Britain possesses, it is calueulated, 1,300.000. tons, Sweden comes next in Europe with 1,158,000,000 tons. The loss of Lorraine means to Germany the loss of one-half of her iron ore. M. Marquet predicts that France will produce as much as 40.000. tons of ore annually, and work this up when the necessary blast furnaces are built. Hitherto the bulk of French production has been consumed at hornet but with an annual output of anything like 13,000,000 tons of pig iron, whicdi may mean 11,000,000 tons or 12,000,000 tons of steel, there will eventually be a large surplus available for export.