NOTES. THE FRENCH BRIEY-LONGWY IRON ORE BASIN. We have received a copy of the translation of a secret memorandum which was addressed at the close of 1917 to the German Imperial Chancellor, Count von Hertling, and to Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, by Law Councillor W. Meyer and Dr. J. Reichert, on behalf of the Association of German Iron and Steel Manufacturers, and by General Manager Voegler and Dr. Ing. O. Petersen, on behalf of the German Ironmasters. Dr. Petersen is also the editor of the German periodical "Stahl und Eisen." The memorandum states: (1) That Germany's dependence upon foreign countries for its supply of iron ore constitutes a very grave danger to German industry and to the German State and people. It adds, (2) that forethought for the future renders the displacement of the Lorraine frontier necessary and unavoidable. In the third place, it enlarges upon the point that the mining lands (in France), which it is proposed by Germany to annex, are of enormous value for Germany's national welfare and for her waging of “a future war." A fourth and final chapter is entitled "Conclusion." The whole of the memorandum is very ably analyzed in a Foreword by the translator. The memorandum states that the iron ore supplies to Germany's enemies are fully assured, whereas the German ironfields will soon be exhausted. Great Britain, it adds, imports a large quantity of ores, and before the war Germany also obtained foreign ores from the same countries which supply Great Britain; but, the memorandum further states, there is a great difference in this respect between the situation of Great Britain and that of Germany, and it arises from the British mastery of the seas. The huge navy of Great Britain ensured for that country, even in time of war, its overseas imports, whereas Germany was at once cut off from almost all the other ore-producing countries. The foreword deals with the comparisons made in the memorandum between the German iron ore resources and those of France, and calls attention to the fact that the German authorities do not mention the Bavarian iron ore deposits, estimations concerning which were given in the German journal "Glückauf" as late as March 12, 1910 ("Die Eisenerzvorkommen in der Fränkischen Alb"), when those deposits were calculated to contain 1,700,000,000 tons, a figure which certainly represents a minimum. The translator adds in this connection that the four German specialists, the authors of the memorandum, exaggerate both the annual consumption of iron ore in Germany and the importance of the French Normandy iron ore deposits, with a view to demonstrate that France, even were she compelled to give up to Germany the Briey-Longwy basin, would still remain in possession of very great iron ore resources. It should be remarked here that the memorandum states most candidly that "few people to this day are aware that Normandy possesses such rich ore deposits, for the German prospectors kept secret from everyone the knowledge they had acquired in the very last years before the war." The Germans were not always so very pessimistic in regard to their mineral resources, for in "Gemeinfassliche Darstellung des Eisenhüttenwesens" (5th edition, 1903, the last edition we have received), a book issued by the Association of German 66 Ironmasters, the latter, after reviewing the mineral resources of the whole world, congratulate themselves on the favorable position of Germany. The last three lines of the book state the following (translation): * * * Under all circumstances, the prospects of Germany are more favorable than those of Great Britain, and this applies both to our (the German) coalfields and to the occurrences of ore." Since these lines were written, Germany, it is true, has lost Alsace-Lorraine, but she has ascertained the value of the Bavarian deposits above referred to. The memorandum throws emphasis repeatedly upon the necessity of shifting the Lorraine frontier farther West owing to the German need of iron ore and to the proximity of many new and immensely important German establishments. It does this after comparing, as we have said, the mineral resources of Germany with those of "Germany's enemies," and then it states, practically in the light of an afterthought, that “by annexing all such necessary frontier areas, there would be incorporated in the German Fatherland a territory which for centuries belonged to the former German Empire." This means that if the Briey-Longwy district were absolutely barren and contained no ironstone in its subsoil, the German ironmasters would not think of annexing it, although it might have belonged formerly to the German Fatherland. Or they might have coveted it simply to increase the distance between France and the German establishments. Germany's "historic right" to the districts in question in this latter case still remains a secondary argument on the part of the German ironmasters who, it would seem, should have based their claim first and foremost upon the standpoint of history. Their brief historical data go as far back as Charlemagne; but the latter is quite as well known in French history as in German history. Charlemagne, in 800, was made Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III, and among the tribes he conquered were the Bavarians and Saxons. By invoking Charlemange, France might possibly lay claim to a part of the present Germany. The figures quoted for the production of steel in Germany in 1913, the last complete peace year before the war, are as follow, the statements we give in brackets being taken from "Stahl und Eisen”: Thomas steel (basic converter steel), 10,630,000 tons, Siemens-Martin steel, 7,977,000 tons. (This is probably made up of open-hearth steel, basic and acid 7,610,000 tons, and steel castings 362,916 tons.) Other steel is given as having reached 328,600 tons (probably made up of crucible steel 99,000 tons, electric steel 77,000 tons, and Bessemer steel 155,000 tons). The figures for 1916 are also quoted, and are the following: For both years the figures cover Germany, Alsace-Lorraine and Luxemburg. The fact that so much basic converter steel should have been manufactured in Germany in 1916, at a time when the country was unable to meet any of its own commercial needs and unable also to export, the whole activities of the nation being exerted in meeting the war requirements, is striking and should not be lost sight of. The output of openhearth steel is practically the same in 1916 as in 1913. The memorandum states that the quantity produced in 1916 would not have reached the figure for 1913, owing to the lack in Germany of resources in discards and scrap, and owing also to the great shortage of labor. "Fortunately," it adds, the successes of our army enabled us to secure from the conquered territories, besides great quantities of pig-iron, semi-finished and finished products, a large amount of discards and scrap. In this, we were helped, among other things, by pulling down the industrial establishments already devastated by war or threatened with destruction." The italics are ours. We may remind our readers that one of the addressees of the secret memorandum in question was Marshal von Hindenburg, who, we should think, was, better than its authors, conversant with the pulling down activities of the German Army. As it is, the total steel output of Germany was 18,935,600 tons in 1913 and 16,182,000 tons in 1916; the latter figure would hardly point to the alleged "great shortage of labor." * * 66 * * Reverting to the figures for output quoted in the memorandum, it may be surmised that in 1916 no armor plates and very few large-caliber guns, if any, were built for the German Navy; probably no guns, whether for the German Navy or Army were then built of crucible steel. We have always doubted the German assertion that their guns of recent construction were invariably built of that steel, considering the quality now obtainable in the open-hearth furnace. Krupp guns were manufactured before the war at the Cockerill Works, Seraing, and at the Skoda Works, Pilsen. The former works have been completely dismantled, no doubt because they were "threatened with destruction." An official of one of these two works asked whether he built Krupp guns of crucible steel, replied emphatically in the negative; the other firm used occasionally to purchase large naval gun tubes from outside steel makers, who may be said to manufacture tons of open-hearth steel for every ounce of crucible steel they produce. We believe that several Continental works still continue making crucible steel and also puddled iron. They, of course, find use for both metals occasionally, but their main object may be said to be the training of experienced workmen on whom they can rely in an emergency. We wish to correct an error which has crept in the translation of the memorandum, on page 36. The authors are made to say: This was more notable from the end of 1870, when German engineers succeeded in putting to practical use the English discovery of the Thomas process The passage should read: *This was more notable towards the end of the 'seventies" and so forth. The German writers could hardly claim to have improved a process before the discovery of that process. We do not know of any such German improvement of the basic process. In regard to the early statistics of basic and other steel output, they will frequently be found to cover, besides Germany, also Luxemburg and Austria. Even then, in the early 'eighties, the figures of output given in German journals do not show sufficiently high totals to point to any German improvement of the British process in question. The German ironmasters, like the ironmasters in every other country, had to overcome the difficulties inherent to the manufacture of a converter lining, adequate in every respect, before they could make a success of the basic process. The authors cannot have had in mind the "Scheibler process"; this, so far as we can trace, was patented in Germany in about 1886, and it was claimed to require a lesser lime addition, to reduce the duration of the blow and to give a better yield in steel and in phosphoric slag. It was adopted by some German firms and was dropped by several. But, given the British basic process, or, we should say, when a firm had acquired the right against the payment of a royalty to use that process, it would seem to us that that same firm was at liberty to vary at will the addition of baked limestone to suit its own particular requirements and conditions, and this variation would not appear to be patentable, the addition of limestone forming part of the original British invention. Be that as it may, the statement that "German engineers succeeded in putting to practical use the English discovery of the Thomas process" was one which was sure to appeal to von Hertling and von Hindenburg, who probably were not so well versed in steel manufacture as in other subjects. One of our foremost authorities in the manufacture of steel, Sir Robert Hadfield, stated at the meeting of the Faraday Society on November 12 last, that "German metallurgists * * * have only copied, absorbed and made use of the principles of French, British, American and Swedish metallurgists. I cannot remember any specific instance of the Germans teaching us any basic principles in ferrous metallurgy.' The memorandum also lays great stress upon the very close connection which exists between the steel industry and agriculture, upon the value to agriculture of the phosphates obtained by the basic process. In our present brief review, this point may be viewed simply in the light of a corollary, and we need not refer to it specially. * It mentions" the future war" ad nauseam and states that "the displacement of our Lorraine frontiers is absolutely indispensable, not only for the security of the German Empire in a future war, but also for the consolidation of our national welfare * *"" Since Germany not only has not obtained the French Briey-Longwy basin which she has coveted for many years past, but has also lost the portion of that basin which is situated in the provinces she wrested from France in 1871, it would therefore follow that "the future war" now becomes to her an impossibility. But there remain to her the above-mentioned Bavarian deposits of 1,700,000,000 tons, upon which she appears not to have laid much stress hitherto, and the Entente Nations would still have to view contingencies with great caution. The question of "the future war" is outside our province, it is one entirely for the Peace Conference to deal with, but we may be allowed to connect the matter with a statement made many years ago in quite different circumstances by a learned British judge. He said: The harness of certain horses contains a special strap, called the 'kicking strap.' The horse does not know the strap is there until it wants to kick; and when it wants to kick, it can't." We are quite content to leave all these questions in the hands of the Entente diplomatists who, we feel sure, will do the needful. 66 In conclusion we recommend the report to our readers. The English version is published in pamphlet form, under the title "German Designs on French Lorraine," at the price of 6d. net, by Messrs. George Allen and Unwin, Limited, Ruskin House, 40, Museum-street, W.Č. 1.—“Engineering." IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHIPS.* The idea of providing a central pipe or duct in the lower portion of a vessel for the purpose of dealing with fluid distributed in different compartments along its length is not new. It is proposed in this particular development to provide the central fore-and-aft duct by dispensing with the ordinary vertical keel plate, and by working instead a relatively narrow box keel running the length of the vessel, and having an uninterrupted passage through it from one end to the other. Dealing first with the form of this duct keel and its relation to the adjacent ship structure, reference may be made to Figs. 1 and 2. Fig. 1 represents, in cross section, an ordinary type of vertical keel structure. Fig. 2 represents sections across the proposed duct keel, the framing shown on either side of the keel in Fig. 2 being of the plateframe type. The maximum width between the vertical plates is not at present intended to exceed 2 feet 6 inches, while it may be as little as 1 foot 9 inches in particular cases. The depth of the duct would generally be the normal full depth of the vertical keel. *Abstract of paper read before the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, by Mr. E. F. Spanner, R. C. N. C. |