TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > History > The modern technology breakthrough 'right down the line'
Railways in 1830s Europe marked discontinuity in history traditional iron industry mass demand low quality iron met by modern coal using iron industry quality sufficient for producing rails and could met demand in sufficient quantities lot of railway construction on the Continent depended on importation British railway iron railways ensured crucial demand for modern iron sector in Franc.
Prohibitive levied until 1850s hindered French railway companies from importing Belgian or British railway iron railway demand made French modern iron works in French coalmining areas viable for the first time low quality iron entirely sufficient made traditional and modern iron industry expand well into the 1850s some companies got dependent on railway iron (Decazeville) whilst Le Creusot got beyond rail production and learned how to make coal iron in increasing qualities at prices low enough to challenge traditional iron works.
Long term this process would have ruined iron production on charcoal in any case FRANCE customs policy induced a sudden decline of the iron industry base don charcoal around 1860.
From 1851-52 principle of equivalence introduced exporter of a machine or ship got a certificate 'acquit-a-caution' allowing him to import free of suty an equivalent amount of iron at a lower stage of production which was embodied in the exported product these certificates traded export premium for south and central France in north and northeastern France iron could be imported at a lower price because the acquit-a-caution certificates lower than levied import duty foreign trade, before Cobden Chevallier traty foreign trade in iron changed significantly
Cobden-Chevalier system of moderate tariffs production costs traditional ironworks too high to hold ground against sudden import competition shrank into insignificance not all modern works up to it either Decazeville descended into a mere coal mine drastic adaptations in the 1850s modern French iron industry consolidated and expanded during 1860s railway connected consumers and producers remote location modern iron industry within coalfields no longer problems.
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