The Traditional Chinese Iron Industry and Its Modern Fate by Donald B. Wagner

Author:Donald B. Wagner [Wagner, Donald B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138405745
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 20. Operation of a furnace in Shanxi for converting cast iron to wrought iron, photograph reproduced from Alley (1961a).

As von Richthofen observed, the scale of enterprise in Shanxi in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was very small. (He was not correct in supposing that the same was true all over China without exception, as will be seen below in the discussion of Guangdong.) We may perhaps explain this by noting the tiny capital cost of a crucible iron smelter: ‘A capital of thirty dollars would be sufficient to start this complete set of foundry and iron works, including the purchase of a stock of coal, ore and fire-clay. These substances are all close at hand, and cost only a trifle.’8. It seems that almost anyone could start an ironworks, and that the technology used did not provide any great economies of scale.

Tegengren gives some economic data on the process as he observed it, also in Dayang, around 1920 (see opposite).9. We may note the prodigious consumption of fuel here, almost five times the weight of the iron produced: its cost represented more than half of the total cost, and a small reduction in coal consumption could have increased profits dramatically. We may wonder whether Tegengren’s figures are typical for all crucible smelting. The cost of the large amounts of refractory clay needed for the crucibles would have been prohibitive in many parts of China, but in Shanxi it seems to have been almost insignificant. The clay was available in great quantity out of the same geological strata as the ore and the coal. A final point to be noted is that the fragmentation of the iron industry into small competing enterprises had driven profits down to only 4.8 per cent on the price of the product.

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