236 IRON AND STEEL IN BRITAIN
marked the end of Britain's "splendid isolation/' and that large
new steel works would have to be erected. Mr. J. L. Repogle was
chiefly concerned with the reform of British steel mills, which he
considered to be obsolete, but he thought blast furnace operation
the weakest link in the chain and also criticized the coke-oven
equipment. His chief strictures were on the management, which he
considered conservative and unaggressive, and he blamed their
persistence in regarding obsolete plant as assets when in reality they
were liabilities. Repogle proposed the construction of three-million
ton ingot producing units on the English and Welsh seaboard, but
the cost was excessive. At this date Professor Jevons estimated
the cost of national reorganisation at £150,000,000.
In summary it may be said that throughout the period the structure
of the British industry was characterized by relative stationariness.
There was no technological boldness but alack of courage in direc-
tion and an apparent desire to put off changes as long as possible.
Additions, remodelling and patchwork reconstruction were preferred
to a new start on a large and balanced scale, involving a redis-
tribution of production centres from the districts becoming
uneconomic to the areas where ores were cheapest. There was no
apparent appreciation of which were the locations of low cost in
production and assembly, and natural resources and facilities were
not fully exploited.
Radical change in Britain should have come early in the period
when the industry was seen to be suffering disadvantage from
having pioneered in the wrought iron trade. Steel making was
amazingly scattered in small-scale plants. Even in the nineties the
common steel makers were not expanding, due, among other
reasons, to obsolescent localities, and it required a Carnegie to deal
with the situation. By the end of the century a large steel plant
ought to have opened up the Midland ore centres, where it was
recognized that cheap pig iron could be made. New plants in better
locations were known to be required, but as it was nobody's interest
to effect technical and locational integration of all stages (except,
perhaps, the manufacturer of finished steel), growth was haphazard,
sectional and unco-ordinated. The international creation of excess
productive capacity rendered consolidation necessary, but the pace,
scale and riming were wrong, and when rationalization was at-
tempted it was too late to be of service to the British industry in
the world depression.