PREFACE
The purpose of the accompanying series of studies is to shed light upon the vast importance of commercial control of raw materials by different powers, or by the citizens of those powers, through invested capital. The question of domestic and foreign governmental policies of the United States is closely involved. It appeared to many of us who were engaged (as all the authors of these papers were) in studying the mineral problems during the war, that our Government had never grasped the vast political significance of commercial domination, and especially of the control of mineral wealth; and that other more seasoned nations had done so, and thereby affected the interests of America and her policy very deeply, without her being aware of the circumstance.
With the rapid increase of the world’s population and the exploring and exploiting of the hitherto undeveloped natural resources, competition for this wealth has become and will still become keener. In past ages war, pestilence, and starvation held down the earth’s population; and in the last few years all these grim spectres have returned in force, suggesting the possibility of a permanent return of the old primitive days. Nevertheless, modern science and organization, if not quenched by vast social disorders, will so safeguard life, as in recent times, that the world is in a fair way to become crowded. All of us, like Germany, yearn for our “place in the sun,” and our share of comfort and power. Of all the fundamental necessities for this, nothing is so much in the nature of a fixed and unmultipliable quality as the metals; they constitute the basis and foundation of our modern civilization and power over man and natural forces. Other raw materials are of vegetable or animal origin; they propagate and duplicate themselves in successive incarnations according to the law of life; they are born in some magical fashion of air and water, with a minimum of the earth, and they return their loans faithfully to air and water and earth with the passing of each generation and the dawning of a new. There is the hint of such a law of growth in the mineral kingdom, but it is so vastly slow that the evanescent animal man has no personal interest in it; for all his purposes and by all his standards of measurement it is inert, and these riches, once dug and used, will never again be available. The treasures of commercially valuable ore-deposits have been hid by nature whimsically throughout the earth, here and there, by no rule of geography or latitude, and with a great disregard of equality. A nation’s needs or desires for mineral wealth have no stated relation to its actual mineral possessions; what it needs is often in the territory of another nation which does not need it. Commerce is thus born, and the nation which must have the metal or ore in question backs up its commerce and helps it to fasten its claims for permanent control of the deposits in question, by legislation, by diplomacy, and, if need be, by war. In the case of war, the metallic prize falls to the strongest—usually the nation which before, through its necessities, exercised only commercial control, but which, as the result of the trial of strength, now frankly asserts its sovereignty.
Have we as Americans realized these forces? Absolutely not, I should say. How many realize that the Alsace-Lorraine question is and was not a sentimental one, but a struggle for the greatest iron deposits of Europe and the second largest in the world, which gave Germany her immense growth and power, and may now transfer that wealth and power to France? That the dispute between Poland and Germany as to Upper Silesia is not a question of nationality, sentiment, or even territory, but concerns the greatest coal field of Europe as well as great deposits of lead and zinc? If Poland gets this, she may rival Germany in wealth and importance; if Germany loses it, she may drop into the position of a second-rate power, now that she has also had to give up Alsace-Lorraine. To submit such a question to the vote of the native population is of the same order of fitness as tossing a coin for it; but how many of us have understood this? Population shifts and changes, swells or shrinks, may be at one time predominantly Polish and at another time mainly German; but the coal deposits are fixed. To clarify these things we should in place of Silesia say Coal, in the place of Alsace-Lorraine, Iron, and so on.
The reason we have not realized these facts is on account of our own vast mineral wealth, so abundant that not till recently has American capital and enterprise found it necessary to adventure into the outside world, as the European nations had long ago done. Their natural wealth was limited so that they have become familiar with those fundamental principles and laws of which we have been unconscious. From this has arisen European foreign policies, the protection of their national commerce and national capital in foreign enterprises and consequently at home; governmental participation in business combinations, as in Germany, England, France, and Italy; while the United States has been engaged in “trust-busting” and has neglected the protection of its investors in foreign countries. This illustrates the difference between European diplomacy and American guilelessness. How well this played into the hands of foreign powers it is unnecessary to explain. The spectacle of the United States maintaining a Monroe Doctrine of protection over Latin-American republics which she took no vigorous steps to unite with her by the powerful bonds of commerce, must well have excited the amusement of those European commercial nations like Germany who have been strengthening themselves in those countries by the closest commercial, and hence political, ties.
This volume simply takes up the study of the actual situation, as to the distribution and ownership of mineral supplies in the world, and the author of each chapter is a well-known specialist.
First is considered the question of petroleum, source of power and light, the key to the mastery of the air, and, on account of its fluid and easily transportable condition, of extraordinary future importance. Next are taken up the great fuel mineral, coal, and its ally, the great metallic mineral, iron, which must go together for the manufacture of iron and steel, the backbone of all our mechanical achievements. Next come those metals indispensable in steel making and in the manufacture of specially hard or tough steels. These are of great importance, and include manganese, chromium, nickel, tungsten, vanadium, antimony, molybdenum, uranium, and zirconium. Radium is closely associated with uranium and is considered with it. Closely allied with zirconium are thorium and mesothorium, and their treatment therefore closely follows that of zirconium.
The next great group is that of the major metals, other than iron and the ferro-alloy metals: copper, lead, zinc, tin and mercury, and aluminum. Aluminum ores are used not only as sources of the metal, but for the manufacture of refractories and abrasives. Therefore they are classed partly with the metallic and partly with the non-metallic minerals; and the other non-metallic minerals, used likewise for abrasives, refractories, and other uses—such minerals as emery and corundum, magnesite, graphite, mica, and asbestos—follow.
The next great group is that of the fertilizer minerals—phosphate rock, potash, nitrates and nitrogen, and pyrite and sulphur, all essential for agriculture.
The last group is that of the precious metals, gold, silver, and platinum, essential for coinage and in the arts.
These various studies are essentially both inclusive and elementary: together they form almost the first contribution to the branch of investigation—that of the relation of geology to industry, commerce, and political economy—which they cover; and it is natural that beginnings should be rather crude. Moreover, many of the chapters were written a year or more previous to the publication of the volume, and although brought to date to the extent possible in the brief time available, are considered inadequate by the authors themselves. Apologies for shortcomings and possible inaccuracies are therefore very much in order. Nevertheless, it is felt that the volume merits publication, and that the beginning here made is far better than no start at all.
Josiah Edward Spurr.