SaranaJti |lmld# SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1908.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13791, 24 October 1908, Page 4

Taranaki Herald. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1908.

BRITISH IRON INDUSTRY.

As a nation Great Britain depends more upon manufactures, and less upon agriculture, for employment than any of her contemporaries, and of recent years there has existed some alarm concerning the industrial future of the country. A writer in The World's Work, Mr. T. Good, endeavours to dispel this alarm and restore confidence in the resources of the country. A few years ago we were assured, he says, by those claiming to be authorities that the coal measures and iron-ore reserves of Great Britain were nearly exhausted, "while exaggerated Accounts, of the inexhaustible resources of competitive countries were circulated. Fortunately, the ironfamine theory was proved to be just as unwarranted and unfounded as the coal-famine sophistry. The " dumping" of large quantities of their goods in England by certain American steelmakers on the verge of- bankruptcy created a scare. On another occasion, because America purchased a few second-hand steamboats from England at high prices, the newspapers and" magazines were filled with articles about the doom of. British shipping. To-day these , pessimists are pointing to the rapidly increasing productive capacities of Britain's foreign rivals in iron and steel, and confidently predicting that the British market will soon be deluged with "dumped" steel and the Home manufacturers be ruined. Mr. Good replies to all this with the assertion that Great Britain possesses such great natural resources, such inherent human skill, and such an advantageous geographical situation, that she can profitably produce iron, make steel, and put the finished produpts on board ship — just as she can build a ship and her engines — at a cost below that at which any of. her rivals can. He admits that foreign competitors have frequently undersold the British in the world's markets, but that is not due to natural or fundamental disadvantages, but to antiquated British methods of business. But

in the last four or five years an entirely new policy lias been adopted in the British iron and steel trade, which now occupies a stronger competitive position, industrially, financially, and commercially, than it has occupied for more than a generation. Mr. Good does not make these assertions without evidence to support tli em. He shows that in Germany, Britain's most insistent competitor, coal is neither so good nor so cheap as in Great Britain. German iron ore is mined somewhat more cheaply, but it is of lower grade ; and while in Great Britain coal and ore are deposited practically in the same beds, or within the easiest possible distance of each other, Germany's coal and ore are found in widely separated districts. In Britain it costs about 3s per ton to carry coal, or Is 6d to carry ore to the smelting furnaces,! while in Germany the corresponding cost is between 6s and 7s, so that the Germans cannot possibly produce pig iron as cheaply as the British. As for the United States, the principal iron ore deposits are 1000 miles distant from the coal-fields, and it costs about 8s a ton to carry the ore to the coal and furnaces, and the furnaces are between 400 and 500 miles from the- seaboard. In Great Britain on the other hand the minerals, furnaces, and shipping ports are conveniently situ1 ated, and the best Spanish and i Scandinavian ores can be landed alongside the furnaces, in the very centre of the coal-fields, at a cost for freightage of about 4s a ton. Summing up, Mr. Good says there has been vsome danger of Britain losing her supremacy as an iron-exporting country to Germany, but that danger has been removed. The iron and steel makers have mended their ways and can now face the future with confidence. And so it will be in most other industries that have been or are threatened. Cheap raw material, skilled labour, geographical position, and sound capitalisation give advantages which protective tariffs cannot give. All that is wanted to, mate the position secure is g&'od organisation.