It is difficult to imagine what would have been the state of the iron
industry in this country if we had been called upon to supply our full
proportion of the enormously increased demand for iron. To meet that
proportion, the British production of pig iron should have been close
on 11,000,000 tons in 1882, a drain on our mineral resources which
cannot be replaced, and which, especially if continued in the same
ratio, would have been anything but desirable. Fortunately, as I am
disposed to think, other countries have contributed more than a
proportionate amount to the increase in the world's demand; and,
paradoxical as it may appear, it is possible that, to this country at
least, the encouragement given by protective duties to the production
of iron abroad may have been a blessing in disguise.
PROGRESS OF BESSEMER STEEL.
To speak of the enormous increase in the production of steel by the
introduction of the Bessemer process has become a commonplace on
occasions like the present, and yet I doubt whether its real
dimensions are generally known or remembered. In 1869 the manufacture
of Bessemer steel had already acquired what was then looked upon as a
considerable development in all the principal centers of metallurgical
industry, except the United States, but including our own country,
Germany, France, and Austria, and the world's production in that year
was 400,000 tons. Last year it was over 5,000,000 tons, and it has
doubled in every steel-producing country during the last four years,
except in France, where, during this latter period, the increase has
not been much more than one-fourth.
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