CHAPTER XVIII 
SOUTH WALES IRON AND STEEL 
WaiLE there may be some ground for the complaint that 
the heavy iron and steel trades of South Wales have been 
hampered by imports of foreign material, it is doubtful 
whether, having regard to their local situation, the metal- 
lurgical industries of that district are less successful than 
had they been affected only by British, instead of Belgian, 
German and American competition. Trade conditions 
in South Wales are, quite apart from occasional “ booms ”’ 
in steel, far from being as bad as they have been represented. 
In any case, the history of the Welsh iron industry throws 
a good deal of light on the true position of affairs at the 
present time. The pioneers of this industry were attracted. 
to Monmouthshire and South Wales, as others had been to 
Derbyshire and Staffordshire, by the iron ore found on the 
outcrops with the coal, comparatively near the sea. The 
Welsh ironmaster, with cheap fuel and labour, thus enjoyed 
an advantage in his proximity to the coast over the inland 
iron districts, while the use of Spanish ore, coupled with 
the cheapening of freights from Bilbao, not only enabled him 
gradually to dispense with the low-grade ores he formerly 
smelted, but relatively diminished in his favour the cost 
of iron production in districts more remote from the sea. 
The old Welsh plants consisted of open-top cold-blast 
furnaces, whose waste gases, to-day used for heating the 
stoves and raising steam under the boilers, formerly escaped 
into the air. They consumed, with their low pillar of blast, 
an enormous quantity of fuel in proportion to the small 
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