南ウェールズ製鉄業における経営活動の分析 : クローシェイの事例
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概要
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The Crawshays, one of the greatest ironmasters in South Wales was called "Iron King" in the first half of the nineteenth century. It began, however, to decline in the middle of the same century and finally was merged into Guest Keen and Co. in 1902. Guest Keen developed from the Dowlais Iron Company which was a rival to the Crawshays through the nineteenth century. The aim of this article is to search for the cause of the Crawshays' decline referring to "the Cyfarthfa Papers" (1810-1878) which are preserved in the National Library of Wales. Furthermore, we are going to compare Crawshay with Dowlais. In the last analysis, we intend to show in this study the contrast of profit between the two companies (Crawshay and Dowlais) in 1850's and 1870's. In 1850's, Crawshay made a large profit (e. g., more than 150,000 pounds a year), while Dowlais made a loss. But, in 1870's, Dowlais made a great profit (e. g., more than 250,000 pounds a year), while Crawshay was obliged to suffer a heavy loss. The striking difference came from different attitudes to investment in their own ironworks since 1850's. Crawshay made little investment in his ironworks in spite of having a high rate of profit in 1850's. His way of investment in 1850's was different from those in 1820's, 1830's, and 1840's. An enormous industrial investment was needed to cope with thc drastic change in technology in 1850's and after (for example, there was an invention of a `converter' by Henry Bessemer in 1856). When such an investment was not made, a rate of profit were possibly fated to decrease. In the meanwhile, the Dowlais Iron Company did make a huge investment vigorously under the leadership of excellent managers and realized a large profit in 1870's. Therefore, we can conclude that the difference in industrial investments brought about the contrast of profit between the two companies. Generally speaking, this causal relation suggests that it mattered very much for development or ironworks at alater time whether entrepreneurs invested or not aggressively in their ironworks in 1850's and the succeeding decades. Thus it elucidates the significance of investment in the iron and steel industry in this period. We may find in this connection the reason for the fact that the Dowlais Iron Company has grown to a big company well known as " Guest Keen and Nettlefolds ", while Crawshay was mostly in distress thereafter and was absorbed in Guest Keen in 1902.
- 社会経済史学会の論文
- 1977-03-31