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500
V. INDUSTRIES OF SWEDEN. A GENERAL SURVEY.
these mountains Nature has concealed another of Sweden’s principal
sources of wealth: its well-nigh unbounded iron ore fields. There is a
great belt of these extending right across the central part of the country,
consisting of the purest ore in the whole world. The main mass of ore,
however, is to be found in the mountainous districts of Lappland,
inaccessible until lately, but now opened up to the markets of the world
by means of recently constructed railways. Many other mineral
treasures, too, lie hidden away in the Swedish mountains. Hence,
naturally enough, Mining has been from time immemorial one of the foremost
industries of the country. For a long period, it may be mentioned,
Sweden was the greatest producer of iron in Europe; the employment,
however, of fossil coal in the manufacture of pig iron produced a
revolution in the industry. Since that time the want of fossil fuel has
formed the chief obstacle to the rapid development of industry in
Sweden. The lack of coal is the cause, too, of the iron trade in
Lapp-land being merely a trade in the raw product. Notwithstanding, the
increase in number and extent of foundries, machine-shops, etc., during
the last few decades, would seem to show that in this department, as
in that of the timber trade, a change is being effected, and that a
transition to a manufacturing industry on a large scale is on the high
road to establishment.
The lack of coal — that mineral only being found in NW. Skåne
and in quite insufficient quantity to meet the demands of the country
— together with the great extent of territory and consequent difficulty
and costliness of communications have furthermore been the chief causes
of Mechanical Industry having long occupied a less important position
in Sweden. During the last few decades, however, a distinct change
in this state of things has taken place. Numbers of new branches of
manufacture have been started, and those existing before have increased
their output by many times, with the result that the value of the
manufactures of the country has immensely increased, and for the year
1900 was estimated at 1,050 million kronor (apart from the produce of
mines and dairies), while the population deriving subsistence from
manufacture has more than doubled since 1870. Industry on a large
scale has therefore set its foot on Swedish soil, and bids fair before
long to place the country among the more principal centers of the
world’s industrial life — in spite of the lack of coal, but by virtue of
the abundant supply of that other grand natural source of power for
industrial enterprise: waterfalls.
Commerce and Navigation come next on the list of the most
important occupations of the population. Owing to the great extent
of coast-line, to the numbers of harbours, and to the well developed
system of waterways in the interior of the country — rendered possible
in the first instance by the great inland lakes and extended further
by very considerable canal-constructions — the home navigation is
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