London
March 8
1860
My dear Henry
In reply to your letter about Iron, I give you the result of my experience <1> –
Let your ironstone at a royalty of so much a ton, with a sleeping rent which will ensure its being worked. Have nothing else to do with the concern of iron-making It is a miserable losing business, and the secret of the large fortunes which have been made in the iron trade is to be solved by the fact that the old leases of 99 years were still in existence, during which the minerals paid no royalty – Everybody making iron now is losing money, and most of those who work coal also. The Wiltshire problem is to find whether dear coal & cheap iron stone can compete with cheap coal and dear ironstone. But there is another point involved. We always find that to make good iron, a mixture of ores is desirable. And we in Wales import quantities of Lancashire ore. We also import from Devonshire Northamptonshire & and if the Wiltshire makers find the same necessity to exist, their only advantage will be taken away.
Yours ever truly
CRM Talbot
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 05275.