8i6 
THg TftOI^ICl^l. /I^SRieHttORlST. [May 2, 1892. 
Opinions differed, Professor Jeovns and otliers held, if 
we remember right, that in all probability our cheap 
coal would be exhansted within a hundred years, 
while owing to panic or combination among owners 
or workmen, there might be at any time an ap- 
preciation of coal and iron which wonid drive the 
English consumer to foreign sources of svipply, and be 
ruinous to much of our industrial supremacy. It was 
believed in 1868 by those who took a saDguine view, 
that the consumption of our ccal would not exceed 
(be amount to vfhieh it had then risen, exactly one 
hundred millions of tons, bec&use it was supposed 
that by hot blast, smoke consumptiou, close-topped 
iron furnaces and other appliances, we would econo- 
mise to such a degree, that the increased con- 
Bumption and export would be more than balaoced. 
As we have seen this prophecy was not verified: the 
outturn rose above fifty per cent in a few years, and 
England now stand? face to face with the apparent 
certainty that all the good coal within two thousand 
feet of the surface of her soil will be exhausted during 
the lives of thousands who have been already born. 
As was prophesied, there have been several notable 
appreciations of coal and iron ; in 1873 steel rails rose 
to £15 10a per ton, having since been as low as £i 
10a. Thia was due to temporary causes, but the last 
news, from home seems to point to a determination on 
the part of both mssters and workmen, that the 
public must in future pay much higher than present 
prices for coal and iron. There is nothing in the 
general state of trade to warrant the reduction of 
wagea which the masters have found necessary; there 
is no strike for eight hours' play and eight shillings a 
day; there is no graspiog at better standards of 
comfort and living ; we see nothing but the inevitable 
and long foreseen result of unlimited production and 
coBsumption of iron and coal, both having been ac- 
celerated in a high degree by our system of free trade. 
It ia desirable then to consider wbat can be done in 
the Eastern dominions of the Crown to reduce the 
balance which seems as if it were about to incline 
seriously against us. Tbe inquiry ia still more inter- 
esting, because during the present year Government 
will commence the manufacture of steel shells at Cossi- 
pore, and it is hoped that more general and extensive 
operations will be undertaken when satiefaotory results 
are shown in one it<f m. The advantages which India pos- 
sesses over England or Germany in iron metallurjjy are 
notable. First, there is aa abuodanceof the finest ores, 
such as are absolutely required for the Bessemer manu- 
facture, which for yeara past has sent into the world 
annually above three million of tons of steel. If again 
we wish to apply the basic process and consume tbe 
phosphoin ores which are also plentiful, dolomite ia 
abundant in India — witneaa the marble rocks of Jub- 
bulpore — while it is scarce and expensive in England. 
It is wellknovfn at home that pure iron ores contain- 
ing op to 97 per cent of ferrioxide abound in India. 
To discredit tbem interested or ignorant parties have 
got up the cry that there is no gooi lime in India. 
The standard work on steel-making Mr. Jeans published 
as late as 1880, contains the information that India 
Bufferi from a want of lime, though many years before 
that date analysis had proved that limestone of unsur- 
passed purity covered thousands of square miles round 
Satna and Katni. We are also told that firebrick clay is 
wanting, though Mr. Hughes found abundant supplies 
near Jnbbulpore, and an English firm has recently 
made firebricks from the clays beside the rail- 
way station. Iron ia manufactnred at a coat of 
£14 per ton in Knmuon, says Air. Jeana ; but the 
Government Geologist reports the cost of making 
Bteel in 1888 to be 112 per maund, or £3-12 per ton 
at present rate of exchange. If such results are 
achieved without the uses of hot blast, or of per- 
manent furnaces with apparatus of the most primeval 
type, what may we not expect from tbe adoption of 
modern improvomeutB ? It is true that the best coal 
il yet wanting in IiiOis, on the other hand, the best 
charcoal and wcod abound, and are a waste product. 
The jnngle fires in l(i,000 Bqu;\re miles of Government 
forestconaume timhor wbich is usolesa for construction, 
y^hioh now vaniehos in emoku and ashes, but wbich 
might be utilised to turn the iron ores into steel rails, 
steam engines, and a hundred items required aiike in 
industry and in war. 
Denudation is dreaded by forest authorities who 
possibly are ignorant that in even inferior furnaoea 
one ton cf iron is prodnced by the consumption of 
thirteen hundredweight of charcoal. Charcoal may be 
made from inferior woods, such as Boswellia and 
Stercidia, or from crooked and worm-eaten boles ; in 
fact the wisest forester admits that iron smelting and 
forest conservancy may co-operate to their mutual 
advantage when reboisment is fostered by heavy rain- 
fall. With all these advantages and a falling rupee, 
how happens it that although steel-making by tbe Bes- 
semer system was taken up in India in 1861, the pro- 
ject was nipped in the bud, and for thirty years no 
steel has been made here by European methods ? How 
is it also that iron smelting has failed in Kumaou and 
Poi'to Novo, while it has succeeded ia Barakur ? The 
answer to these questions must be deferred to another 
occasion. It may be noted, fiuallv, that charcoal ia 
still largely used for the production of the finest 
qualities of steel and iron in Sweden and the United 
States, where forest reproduction is much slower, and 
labour far more costly than in India. The finest 
qualities of steel are those which State railways and 
arsenals demand in annually increasing quantities. 
Strange to say we import ores or iron from Sweden, 
Algiers and Bilbao. We actually construct lengthy 
railways solely for ore carriage, we turn these imported 
ores into steel by the aid of coal, of which our supplies 
are threatened with extinction, and then send the 
finished article to Allahabad or Agra, paying thirty 
shillings per ton for carriage alone, while all the 
materials for steel manufacture exist actually under the 
railways which carry the coitly foreign product. Soon 
we trust Bessemer Converters will be seen operating 
on Indian ores again : no royalties are row required; 
hundreds of millions have been added to the world's 
wealth by blowing air bubbles into big iron pots. 
India should now realise these marvels, and share in 
the gains. — Pioneer. 
* 
THE TEA INDUSTEY. 
On the 3rd instant the last of the Indian tea 
crop, 1891, virtually passed the hammer, and before 
entering on the prospects of 1892 a retrospect 
may be desirable. The averages realised during 
the past season, as the reports of the various 
companiea noW; appearing in our columns prove, 
have been little short of disastrous, and better quality 
must be the aim. A casual survey of the reports seem, 
in our opinion, to evade the real issue, which is nothing 
more nor less than over-production both here and in 
Ceylon, and the inevitable result must be the sur- 
vival of the fittest. The averages most sureiy open 
the eyes of proprietors to the fact that to sell tea 
at five annas per lb., and even lower, which costs 
more to produce, can only result in liquidation. The 
various reports teem with the promise that every 
attention will be paid to manufacfure in the future, 
as if it had been neglected in the past, and then 
hopeful results appear in print about 1892--" a superior 
class of tea will be produced, or an entire 
chasge in the management will be a necessity." 
In the face of the annual depreciation in the 
London market, and a further annual increase 
in outturn, we venture to think that a prediction 
of this sort is purely delusive. The great question 
that presents itself is, have we reached the lowest 
point of economy in the cost of protection, or is there 
any step yet to be taken? 
Machinery has effected much in that respect, but, on 
the other hand, the brain of the inventor has involved 
an outlay that seems to be endless, and no sooner ia 
one machine pronounced the acme of perfection than 
forthwith somes another that is predicted to perform 
double the work at less cost. It therefore strikes us 
that the expense of local management and ' supervision 
is far beyond actual requirements, and in this direction 
and tbe amalgamation of neighbouring properties must 
we look iu futare f9i further eooaomy ; aod in advaa< 
