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Why Was Indian Steel Not Exported in the Colonial Period?—The influence of the British Standard Specification in limiting the potential export of Indian steel in the 1930s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2010

CHIKAYOSHI NOMURA*
Affiliation:
Osaka City University, 3-3-138 Sugimoto, Sumiyoshi-ku Osaka, Japan, 558-8585 Email: chikayoshi_nomura@hotmail.com

Abstract

While various scholars of Indian economic history have focused on the progress of import substitution in India after the 1920s, few have studied why this led to hardly any export of industrial products during the colonial period. One of the most probable reasons for the lesser popularity of this issue could be attributed to a commonly shared view that there was less hope for the export of industrial products in colonial India since import substitution had progressed only so far. Although it is accepted that the industrial development of colonial India was generally stagnant, this does not necessarily apply to specific products in specific industries. For instance, the iron and steel industry achieved almost a full self-sufficiency rate for some of its steel products during the 1920s, although the industry hardly exported the products afterward. This paper aims to clarify why hardly any steel of the Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), the only steel producing company with modern technology until the mid-1930s, was exported. A detailed study of the company's archives will show that the steel export of the company was fundamentally hindered by a fact which had its origin in British imperial policy: the strict quality specifications in the production of steel.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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8 Import/export data: Government of India, Annual statement of sea-borne trade of British India (hereafter ‘Annual statement’). Domestic production: Same as Figure 1.

9 ‘Competitiveness’ is a controversial term, especially in the field of economics. In this paper, the term is used to mean an ability to provide some products more cheaply than others.

11 Table 1 compares only variable costs, excluding capital cost, because of the arbitrariness in fixing depreciation rates from country to country. However, a letter from Tata & Sons to Robert G. Wells, the General Manager of TISCO in 1909-1910, indicates that the total cost, including variable cost and capital cost, of TISCO's pig iron was cheaper than other countries. The letter read: ‘Messer Mitsui say that their principal demand would be of pig iron Cleveland No. 3 or No. 2. No. 3 is at present in London quoted at s.58/-. They presume that the difference of freight between London to Japan and Calcutta to Japan is about s.10 /- so that if we could quote enough under F.O.B. Calcutta at s 68/- to give them encouraging though not very high profits, there would probably be continuous business.’ (TISCO Archive, General Manager's Correspondence File 42, pp.48–49.); and, since the Indian Tariff Board report wrote that the ‘total cost’ of TISCO's pig iron was s. 51.3 (Rs. 38.48) even in 1915/16 when prices rose due to wartime inflation, TISCO's pig iron was indeed highly competitive, at least as early as 1916/17. (Government of India: Indian Tariff Board (hereafter ‘ITB’), Evidence recorded during enquiry into the steel industry (hereafter ‘steel industry’) vol. 1 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1924), pp. 101, 186, £1 = Rs. 15 in 1915/16 and 1916/17.)

12 (1) TISCO, ITB, steel industry vol. 1 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1924), p. 185 (cost), p. 192 (price); (2) Others, TISCO Archives, General Manager's Correspondence Files, File 124, ‘Extract from “the iron age”’, 15 February, 1923, pp. 215–214; and Okazaki, T., Nihon no kogyoka to tekkousanngyo, (Japanese industrialization and the steel industry: a comparative institutional analysis of economic development), (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1993), p. 12Google Scholar.

13 TISCO, Annual report of TISCO.

14 TISCO Archives, General Manager's Correspondence Files, File 119, B. J. Padshah to General Manager of TISCO, 19 July, 1922, p. 145; and, Alexander to Padshah,14 July, 1922, p. 151.

15 United States Steel, The making, shaping and treating of steel, 8th edn (Pittsburgh: United States Steel Corporation, 1964), pp. 626627Google Scholar.

16 The huge difference in competitiveness between TISCO's pig iron and steel production has not received due attention from historians to-date. Only Ray notes explicitly that TISCO's steel could not attain sufficient competitiveness. Ray, R. K., Industrialization in India: growth and conflict in the private corporate sector, 1914–47 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 81, 91Google Scholar.

17 Nomura, Corporate organization matters.

18 The urban population showed a gradual upward trend after 1911, while it showed stagnation before that date. The urban population grew to 31 millions, 37 millions and 49 millions in 1921, 1931, and 1941 respectively. It remained at between 27 and 28 millions for three decades until 1911. Visaria, Leela & Visaria, Pravin, ‘Population (1757–1947)’, in Dharma, Kumar, The Cambridge economic history of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 519Google Scholar. Additionally, Visaria et al. point out that ‘the large cities with a population of 500,000 or more had grown much faster than other centres’. Ibid., p. 521. Since per capita consumption of steel in large cities is considered to have been much larger than that of smaller cities, steel demand for construction purposes might have grown much faster than the rate of growth of urbanization after 1911.

19 Domestic supply, Annual report of TISCO; External supply, Annual statement.

20 While almost 100 per cent of rail, fishplate and sleepers are for the railway industry, bloom, billet and slabs, all of which are intermediate products, are destined for further working into bars, sheet, tubes, forgings, and other products.

21 The high rate of self-sufficiency in the second half of the 1910s is due to the temporary suspension of steel imports due to World War I.

22 Domestic supply, Annual report of TISCO; External supply, Annual statement.

23 (1) 1924/25: ITB, Evidence recorded during enquiry regarding the grant of supplementary protection to the steel industry (Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1925), p. 21; (2) 1925/26: ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: The representations submitted to the Indian Tariff Board by the Tata Iron and Steel Company, Limited (hereafter ‘representations’), (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), p. 143; (3) 1927/28–1929/30, TISCO Archives, Tariff Board File 24 ‘Statement showing orders booked for the year 1927/28, 1928/29, 1929/30’; (4) 1930/31–32/33, ITB, Statutory enquiry, 1933 (hereafter ‘Se1933’), Written evidence given by the Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited before the Indian Tariff Board (hereafter Written evidence), vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 74.

24 Lal, The Hindu equilibrium, Chapter 8.

25 (1) Delivery price in Britain from British Iron and Steel Federation, Statistics of the iron and steel industries (London: Steel House, 1937), p. 22Google Scholar. (2) Landing charge is Rs. 2.75, from ITB, Se1933, Written evidence, vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 61Google Scholar. (3) The freight charge is in a Letter of 12 December, 1923 from Messrs Richardson and Cruddas, to the Indian Tariff Board, ‘Evidence with actual figures showing competition between European engineering firms and Indian firms’, in ITB, steel industry, vol. 2 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1924), p. 510Google Scholar.

26 cif price of British materials in 1924/25, ITB, Evidence recorded during enquiry regarding the grant of supplementary protection to the steel industry (Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1925), pp. 4952Google Scholar; 1925/26–1926/27, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), pp. 156157, 205Google Scholar; 1927/28–1932/33, ITB, Se1933, Written evidence, vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 59Google Scholar. (2) Landed price of British steel at ports of India in 1924–1926, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), pp. 328335Google Scholar; 1927/28–1932/33, ITB, Se1933, Written evidence, vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 61Google Scholar. (3) Realized price of TISCO in 1924/1925, ITB, Evidence recorded during enquiry regarding the grant of supplementary protection to the steel industry (Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1925), pp. 2237Google Scholar; 1925/26, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), pp. 192196Google Scholar; 1927/28–1932/33, ITB, Se1933, Written evidence, vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 63Google Scholar. (4) Landing charge, Ibid., p. 61.

27 TISCO Archives, A. R. Dalal Papers, Box 48, File D48, Speech delivered by D. R. Dalal, M.L.A. in the Legislative Assembly on 31 July, 1934, on the Indian Iron and Steel Duties Bill, pp. 54–56.

28 Wagle, Dileep M., ‘Imperial preference and the Indian steel industry, 1924–39’, The Economic History Review, Second Series, Vol. 34, no. 1, (1981), p. 124Google Scholar. The bracket and quotation marks are in the original.

29 Charles P. Perin had been an influential figure in the initial phase of TISCO due to his technical knowledge of steel production. Perin had worked as a chemist, superintendent and general manager of blast furnaces and steel works in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee before he became a consulting engineer for TISCO in 1900, where he served for decades. Perin was the leading engineer to draw the blueprint for TISCO's workshop, not only in the inauguration period but also in the 1910s when TISCO drastically expanded production capacity. He had a fundamental influence on TISCO's early development. TISCO (1937), TISCO review, April 1937, p. 253. Andrew McWilliam worked as Assistant to Professor Greenwood of the Metallurgical Department at the University of Sheffield in 1887–1889 and became associated with Professor Arnold in 1891. He also had some business experience, having been employed for some years in the 1890s as chemist and steel manager to the Martino Steel Co., while ‘in 1894–6 he inaugurated and firmly established the teaching and training in Metallurgy in Staffordshire’. TISCO Archives, General Manager's Correspondence, File 42, Extract from The Times of India dated 25 December, 1911, pp. 138–139.

30 According to Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1958, percentages of steel produced by Thomas process in average analysis are as follows; Carbon 0.10 to 0.60 per cent, Manganese 0.30 to 0.50 per cent, Phosphorous 0.03 to 0.10 per cent, Sulphur maximum 0.05 per cent. Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 12, (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1958), p. 658.

31 Japanese Association for Iron and Steel, Tekko yoran (Handbook of iron and steel, in Japanese, Third edn), (Tokyo: Matuzen, 1951), p. 941Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., File 54, B. J. Padshah to A. E. Woolsey on 31 March, 1914, p. 6.

33 TISCO Archives, General Manager's Correspondence, File 39, Specification for Basic Open Hearth Steel Rails, by Indian State Railway, 4 January, 1911, pp. 1–2.

34 Beck, Ludwig, Die geschichte des eisens in technischer und kulturgeschichtlicher beziehung, (1897), (Japanese translation published in 1972), vol. 5, part 3, p. 288 in Japanese translation.

35 Lengths of the rails in the US and in Britain in 1880 were 171,688 km and 26,790 km respectively, while in India the lengths were 25,495 km in 1890, 56,980 in 1920/21 and 65,217 km even in 1946/47.

36 Annual statement and Annual report of TISCO indicate that there were three major players in the Indian steel market throughout the period: Britain, TISCO and Belgium. Until the 1930s, Britain was decisively a leading source of supply, although its importance had gradually decreased due to increase in supply by TISCO as well as by European countries, especially Belgium and Germany. Additionally, these two publications show that TISCO took over as the largest supplier in 1931/32 and maintained this position until independence.

37 (1) Cif price of British materials in 1924/25, ITB, Evidence recorded during enquiry regarding the grant of supplementary protection to the steel industry (Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1925), pp. 4952Google Scholar; 1925/26–1926/27, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), pp. 156157, 205Google Scholar; 1927/28–1932/33, ITB, Se1933, Written evidence, vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 59Google Scholar. (2) Landed price of British steel at ports of India in 1924–1926, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), pp. 328335Google Scholar; 1927/28–1932/33, ITB, Se1933, Written evidence, vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 61Google Scholar. (3) cif price of non-British standard materials in 1924/25, ITB, Evidence recorded during enquiry regarding the grant of supplementary protection to the steel industry (Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1925), pp. 5355Google Scholar; 1925/26–1926/27, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), pp. 156157, 205Google Scholar; 1927/28–1932/33, ITB, Se1933, Written evidence, vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 60Google Scholar. (4) Landed price of British steel at ports of India in 1924–1926, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), pp. 328335Google Scholar; 1927/28–1932/33, ITB, Se1933, vol. 1 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 62Google Scholar.

38 (1) External supply, Annual statement; (2) Domestic supply, Annual report of TISCO.

40 TISCO Archives, Tariff Board File 24, ‘Statement showing orders booked for the year 1927/28, 1928/29, 1929/30’.

41 As is well known, the Indian railways had a notoriously complicated ownership and management system throughout the colonial period. This paper considers the railway industry in colonial India to be a public or semi-public undertaking, since the Indian government owned, for instance, 74.2 per cent of the total railways in India and managed 44.7 per cent directly in 1934.

42 British Library, Oriental and Indian Office Collections, L/E/7, 1559, ‘Parliamentary Under Secretary of State’, signed by E. Turner on 30 July, 1929. Another government document read, ‘In regard to locomotives, wagons and similar railways material the importance must be bore in mind, when placing orders, of strict adherence to British Standard specifications’. Ibid., L/E/9, 941, S.3145/1923, ‘Policy and procedure observed in the purchase of stores and the engagement of freight to India, approved by the High Commissioner on 20 February 1926’.

43 TISCO Archives, General Manager's Correspondence Files, File 185, part 2, A letter by E. A. Procter, Chief Works Engineer, to the General Manager of TISCO on 16 January, 1933, pp. 173–175.

44 British Library, Oriental and Indian Office Collections, L/E/7, 1559, ‘Parliamentary Under Secretary of State’, signed by E. Turner on 30 July, 1929.

45 Ibid., L/E/7, 1522, 8492, E. J. Turner to Montgomery in December, 1927. Bracket is mine.

46 Ibid., E. J. Turner to Colonel Kirkhope, on 5 March, 1931.

47 (1) data other than India, from the British Iron and Steel Federation, Statistics of the iron and steel industries, (London: Steel House, 1937)Google Scholar, American Iron and Steel Institute, Annual statistical report of the American Iron and Steel Institute (New York: 1930, 1938)Google Scholar; (2) data of India; same as Figure 1 above.

48 United Nations: Economic Commission for Europe, Statistics of world trade in steel (Geneva: United Nations, 1913/1959)Google Scholar.

49 United Nations: Economic Commission for Europe, Statistics of world trade in steel (Geneva: United Nations, 1913/1959)Google Scholar.

50 Since Japan produced a relatively significant amount of steel herself after the establishment of the Yawata Steel Works in 1895 (the first steel was produced in 1901), the lower rate of BSSS among total steel imported into Japan shown in Table 11 does not imply that Japan used continental European or US steel intensively at that time. In the case of Canada, the country imported a huge amount of steel from the US due to the easy accessibility of US steel plants.

51 Ibid. ‘Net steel produced in Britain’ is steel produced in Britain—export of steel from Britain. No consideration is given to the re-export of non-British steel which is probably included in the export of steel from Britain.

52 Some researchers may consider that Indian railway companies intensively used BSSS, especially BSSS rails, owing to the extensive employment of broad gauge rail networks by the Indian railways. In colonial India, half the railway networks used broad gauge (5’6”), and almost 90 per cent of freight and passenger traffic was carried by the broad gauge network. Consequently, most wagons of Indian railway companies were bigger and heavier than those used on the standard or narrow gauge commonly used abroad. Intensive utilization of heavy wagons, according to some scholars, required rails that were adequately robust; this led Indian railway companies exclusively to employ high quality and robust BSSS steel. A case study of Portugal, whose railway network consisted mostly of the broad gauge system, shows that the Indian railway's intensive use of heavy wagons does not sufficiently explain its exclusive employment of BSSS rails. More than 90 per cent of the rails in Portugal were, for two decades following 1913, imported from Belgium, Germany, or France, where NBSSS was produced intensively (97 per cent in 1913, 93 per cent in 1925, and 73 per cent in 1936 (United Nations: Economic Commission for Europe, Statistics of world trade in steel 1913–59, Geneva: United Nations, 1913/1959). Furthermore, Portugal did not have its own steel plant at that time, indicating that its railway network intensively used NBSSS rails to carry heavy wagons. Portugal's case probably shows that NBSSS was sufficiently robust to carry heavy wagons on the broad gauge network, indicating that the Indian railway's intensive use of heavy wagons does not sufficiently explain its exclusive employment of BSSS rails. (Spain also seems to have used NBSSS rails for its broad gauge system.)

53 (1) Rail: 1924/25, ITB, Evidence recorded during enquiry regarding the grant of supplementary protection to the steel industry, (Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1925), p. 21Google Scholar; 1925/26, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), p. 143144Google Scholar; 1927/28–1929/30, TISCO Archives, Indian Tariff Board Files, File 24, ‘The Statement showing orders booked for the year 1927/28, 1928/29, 1929/30’. (2) Heavy structural: 1925/26, ITB, Statutory enquiry vol. 2: representations (Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch, 1927), pp. 127128Google Scholar; 1927/28, 1929/30, TISCO Archives, Indian Tariff Board Files, File 24, ‘The Statement showing orders booked for the year 1927/28, 1928/29, 1929/30’.

54 TISCO Archives, General Manager's Correspondence Files, File 49, C. R. Darlington to Messrs Tata Sons Ltd dated 26 May, 1913, pp. 317–318. The underlining is in the original.

55 Ibid., File 49 A, Tata Sons Ltd to A. E. Woolsey, on 9 June, 1913, pp. 125–126.

56 Ibid., File 50, Tata Sons Ltd to A. E. Woolsey, General Manager, on 14 July, 1913, pp. 307–308.

57 Ibid., File 49A, B. J. Padshah to A. E. Woolsey, on 16 June, 1913, pp. 169–170.

58 Sen, S. K., Studies in industrial policy and development of India (1858–1914) (Calcutta: Progressive Publisher, 1964), pp. 6566Google Scholar; Ibid., The house of Tata, 1839–1939 (Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 1975), pp. 42–47.

59 TISCO Archives, General Manager's Correspondence Files, File 50, G. C. Godfrey, Acting Agent Bengal-Nagpur Railway, to Messrs Tata Iron & Steel Company, on 12 October, 1911, p. 105.

60 Ibid., File 49, Tata Sons Ltd to the General Manager at Sakchi on 2 May, 1913, p. 17.

61 Ibid., File 54, B. J. Padshah to A. E. Woolsey on 31 March, 1914, pp. 6–7.

62 Ibid., File 53, Re: Rails inspection by Government Inspector, Tata Sons Ltd, to A. E. Woolsey, General Manager of TISCO, on 5 March, 1914, p. 29.

63 ITB, Se1933, Written evidence, vol. 1. (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 9Google Scholar.

64 Government of India, Report on the working of the scheme of preferences resulting from the trade agreement concluded at Ottawa between the Government of India and His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, up to the end of the fiscal year, 1933–34 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1934), p. 108Google Scholar.

66 TISCO Archives, Ardeshir Dalal Papers, File C-48, A letter by A. Dalal to N. B. Saklatvala on 14 May, 1934. In his reply, Saklatvala shared Dalal's view. Ibid., A letter by N. B. Saklatvala to A. Dalal on 18 May, 1934.

67 United Nations: Economic Commission for Europe, Statistics of world trade in steel, (Geneva: United Nations, 1913/1959)Google Scholar; 1913, pp. 10–11. 1925, pp. 32–33. 1929, pp. 56–57. 1936, pp. 84–85. 1937, pp. 114–115. 1938, pp. 144–145.

68 TISCO Archives, Padmaji Ginwala Papers, Box 22, File Minutes of Board Meetings, Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors on 4 May 1931, p. 2.

69 TISCO Archives, Padmaji Ginwala Papers, Box 22, File Minutes of Board Meetings, Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors on 4 May 1931, p. 3.

70 Ibid., File Regarding Export of Sheet Bar and Billet Mill products, K. P. Padshah, Sales Manager, to Messrs Tata Iron & Steel Co. on 9 July, 1931.

71 United Nations: Economic Commission for Europe, Statistics of world trade in steel (Geneva: United Nations, 1913/1959)Google Scholar. Page numbers, respectively, for specific countries in the years 1913, 1925, 1929, 1936 and 1937 are: US—13, 35, 59, 87, 117; Britain—11, 33, 57, 85, 115; Belgium and Luxembourg—3 (Belgium only), 17, 39, 65, 95; Germany—7, 25, 47, 73, 103; France—5, 23, 45, 71, 101; USSR—n.a., n.a., n.a., 89, 119; Japan—n.a., n.a., 49, 77, 107.

72 TISCO Archives, Padmaji Ginwala Papers, Box 22, File Regarding Export of Sheet Bar and Billet Mill products, J. R. D. Tata to R. Mather on 22 March, 1932.

73 Ibid., R. Mather to J. R. D. Tata on 9 April, 1932.

74 National Archives of India, 1939, External Affair, Frontier, File 418- f/39, 2, Supply of iron and steel material to the Afghanistan government by TISCO.

75 Ibid., External, 1–8, 667-x/39, 31, Supply of iron and steel material to The Netherlands East India government, and purchase of iron and steel materials by Borneo from TISCO.

76 TISCO Archives, Padmaji Ginwala Papers, Box 22 File December, 1930–31, May 1933, Padmaji Ginwala to N. Saklatwala on 24 February, 1933.

77 Ibid., File Paragraphs in report of action taken by the Board on 1931–32, Circular on production programme 1931–32 by N. B. Saklatwala, on 20 July 1931, pp. 3–4.