Aside from America and England, there is no dominating factor in the future control of the coal industry in the lands surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. Germany was a strong factor before the war, but the loss to France of the Saar coal district, and the possible loss, to Poland, of the Dombrova field, in Silesia, will deprive her of her importance; and the division among several nations of these resources will prevent any one of them from becoming a world’s factor in the coal trade.
In the lands about the Pacific Ocean, however, the most important future factor is the coal fields of China. No country except the United States has larger reserves of high-grade coal ready for development and not far from ocean transport. It is likely that the Japanese may attempt this development and the fostering of an export trade in the Orient. The high-grade coals of the United States are remote from the Pacific Ocean, and could only be available for Pacific trade by the long route of the Panama Canal. It is not unlikely, therefore, that Chinese coal may in the future be supplied to our own Pacific ports by the Japanese at a less price than American coal can be put there, and that through this development Japan may be able to dominate the Pacific trade, as England has dominated that of the Atlantic and the Pacific in the past.
THE STEEL AND FERRO-ALLOY MINERALS
Iron.
—The iron supplies for the world’s consumption have been obtained principally from four countries: the United States, Germany, France, and Great Britain. More than one-third of the total production has come from the United States, and of the American output about 85 per cent. has come from the Lake Superior district, which alone produces annually over 30 per cent. of the world’s total. Next in importance to the United States have been Germany and France, and about 80 per cent. of the production of these two countries has come from the Lorraine fields on the border. The annual output of these fields has been 25 per cent. of the world’s production, or nearly as much as the Lake Superior district.
Linked with the coal industry as it is, no world-wide or even national monopolies of iron ore have been attempted. The greatest single commercial organization in the world is the United States Steel Corporation, with a total annual capacity (in 1913) of over 17 million tons of pig iron, or about half of the total American production. But this organization is not a monopoly, and there are a large number of powerful independent companies. In France and Germany no dominating organizations have been noted. In England up to the time of the war the iron industry was controlled by middlemen, and the manufacturers were insufficiently organized. To meet this condition ([page 86]) the British Board of Trade Committee advised a consolidation of iron interests.
Extension of commercial control by the dominant iron-producing nations to the ore reserves and to the iron industry of foreign countries, so establishing that commercial penumbra of empire which is so apt to deepen into actual sovereignty, is, however, much more marked in the case of iron than of coal, though less significant than in the case of oil. The control by ownership of great iron fields in South America by England and the United States, and the extension of Japanese control of iron-ore reserves in China, are the most significant features of this situation. In France, even before the war, Germany controlled over one-third of the iron and steel business. With the passing of German Lorraine to France, it is likely that much German capital will remain.
Japan has an iron and steel industry which, although small as compared with that of the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, and the other leading iron and steel manufacturing countries, is rapidly expanding. Blast furnaces, steel-making furnaces, and steel mills are being erected in Japan and in Korea, Manchuria, and China by Japanese interests. Japan is still very far from supplying her own consumption of iron and steel, which is a million and a half tons annually.
In brief, as regards the world’s iron and steel, the United States has a greatly preponderant position, which it will tend to increase, with the desirable tendency of drawing North and South America more closely together. In Europe, France and Germany are oddly yoked in the control of the second greatest steel industry in the world. In the future great arena of the Pacific, Japan is patiently building up her steel industry, with far-reaching Oriental vision. Coal mines and an iron blast furnace are included in the German “rights” recently acquired by Japan. Will Japan return Shantung? Did Germany return Alsace Lorraine? In her forward-looking plans, Japan has two national rivals—England and America. She has a vast fertile field to work in, except for these (especially England)—all of eastern Asia. She has a great disorganized nation which is no longer a rival—but a field whereon to feed and grow stronger—Siberia and Russia.
In the train of steel, and next after the problems of coal and iron, come a number of less-known and less-abundant metals—the ferro-alloys, metals that alloy with iron to make steels of special hardness or toughness, or with some other special quality. Relatively inconspicuous as they are, they are indispensable in the industries.