Abstract
The purpose of this article is to analyze the production system of the iron and steel industry of Japan at the period 1905-1913. In Japan in those days, manufacturing of steel was carried on by only seven establishments: the Kure Naval Arsenal, Sumitomo Iron Works, Kobe Steel, Ltd., Kawasaki Dock Yard Co., Kamaishi Iron Works, Nihon Steel Works, and the State-run Yawata Works. As the Kure Naval Arsenal and all of the private steel makers except Kamaishi Iron Works had introduced the acid open-hearth process, and the Yawata Works had introduced the Bessemer process, the rate of productive capacity of the acid process in the total productive capacity of all the steel furnaces in Japan had reached about 59 percent. The production of acid steel meant that the maker had not only to obtain phosphorus pig iron, but also to possess good hematite and coke, the blast furnace with adequate inner profile, and its own working process. But at that time the iron makers of Japan could not succeed in gaining mastery of the technological know-how to produce low phosphorus pig iron, and therefore the private steel makers as well as the Kure Naval Arsenal were obliged to depend for the supply of raw materials on overseas. As a result, difficulties in getting sufficient raw materials increased along with the development of the steel production. And at the same time, there was a lack of technological consistency between iron making and steel making inside the manufacturing establishments in Japan. All of the materials, equipments and working process for the basic steel are quite different from those for the acid steel. And it is essential for the integrated steel works to make materials suitable to its own steel making process. As is generally known, the Yawata Works had been equipped with acid converters and basic open-hearth furnaces, which meant it had to make pig iron of two kinds, namely low phosphorus pig iron and low silicious pig iron. But, at that time, the pig iron produced by the Yawata Works was neither low phosphorus nor low silicious, because the Yawata Works had not succeeded in obtaining mastery of producing either of them. And then the 'duplex process' was employed as a technological know-how to produce steel superior in quality. The delay of more than ten years in solving technological problems of iron and steel production at the Yawata Works impeded proportional development of the iron and steel industry of Japan.
