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STRÖMSNÅS JÄRNVERKS AKTIEBOLAG
39
Pressed marine boiler end plates.
of the district, to carry on
a manufacturing industry
at Degerfors and, six years
later, permission from the
Board of Mines to establish
a forge. This first plant
stood at the lower part of
the falls, and was therefore
called Lower Degerfors.
Even at that early date
the Government feared
that the forests of the
country would be
exterminated, and therefore
adopted the principle, in
granting privileges for
forges, that such works
should be situated so far from the mines and iron-furnaces that, in the procural
of charcoal and timber for these industries, the various interests should not clash too
much. From this point of view the new forge was favourably placed, as it was outside
the mining districts. As early as 1666, permission was granted for the erection of another
forge and a hammer. This was called Upper Degerfors, and was afterwards run under
a separate management.
Besides the difficulty of getting charcoal, both the works experienced other
drawbacks, inter alia, disputes with the neighbours, who complained of their fishing having
been injured, &c., and who therefore wanted to have the Works closed.
Both works were owned by the Camitz family continuously for 200 years. As during
this period, however, the State carefully regulated the production of every Swedish
iron-works, evidently believing in the principle that as many works as possible should
be allowed to exist, it was clear that the actual output of each works could not be
increased to any great extent. This is nowadays considered by many as wrong economic
policy. When we judge the effects of such a system, however, we must not forget that,
at any rate, it made it possible for Sweden to become the greatest iron producer of the
eighteenth century.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the two works were no longer in the
possession of the Camitz family, though the transferences took place at somewhat different
times, and they afterwards underwent many vicissitudes of fortune in the hands of many
different owners. It is, perhaps, worthy of mention that, during the sixties, the Lower
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