Introduction

Soda ash (sodium carbonate), bountiful in nature for eons, is an essential chemical with many industrial and everyday uses.1 For centuries, China’s supply came from the ashes of plants such as prickly saltwort (Salsola kali), or natural deposits harvested from evaporite lakes in Mongolia, Hebei, Henan, Shandong and Jinzhou. Lixiviated with little quality control, supply was limited due to high transportation costs.2 In modern Europe, spurred on by war and an obsession to conquer nature, synthetic soda ash began to replace natural soda ash. Nicolas Leblanc (1742– 1806) pioneered mixing of sulphuric acid, charcoal and chalk to produce caus- tic soda and soda ash, laying the foundation of the French industry. As a major achievement of the Second Industrial Revolution, the Solvay brothers Ernest (1838–1922) and Alfred (1840–1894), with the help of their circle of family and friends, started producing soda ash from brine and limestone with ammonia in 1862. Although their initial patent was dubious and the start-up plagued by technical problems and capital shortage, the continuous process they perfected began to displace the highly polluting and wasteful Leblanc batch processing.3 In 1872, for a royalty of eight shillings a ton, the Solvays granted an e xclusive license covering Great Britain, then the world’s largest market for soda ash, to Ludwig Mond (1839–1909) and John Tomlinson Brunner (1842–1919), prin- cipals of an unlimited liability partnership with a capital of £5,000.4 Surviving similarly “a good deal of pressure for capital” through insider loans from family

1 Such as dyeing, metallurgy, tanning, paper, soap and glass-making. Daily use includes water-softening, baking, cooking, and cleaning. Chen Canglai, “Zhijian shiye yu rensheng zhi guanxi” [The relationship between life and soda manufacturing] in Guomin zhengfu Gong- shangyebu, ed., Zhonghua guohuo zhanlanhui jilian tekan [Special commemorative issue on National products exhibition] (Nanjing: Guomin zhengfu Gongshangyebu, 1928), 3–4. 2 H. Glendinning, report on Tianjin dated 8 August 1899 in bm W43/6/101 held at Cheshire Local Archives; Minami Manshū tetsudō kabushiki kaisha, Rinji sangyō chōsakyoku, Dai 3-bu Dai 1-ka, comp., Shina ni okeru sōda genryō [Natural soda ash in China] (N.p., 1918), passim.; Yongli zhijian gongsi bianjibu, comp., Suda gongye [Soda industry] (Tianjin: Yongli zhijian gongsi, 1929), 135–52; and Li Wu et al., Zhongguo tianranjian gongye [China’s natural soda ash industry] (Beijing: Huaxue gongye chubanshe, 1994), 1–2. 3 For a survey of the development, see Kenneth Bertrams, Nicolas Coupain, and Ernst Hom- burg, Solvay: History of a Multinational Family Firm (n.y.: Cambridge University Press, 2013), passim; and William H. Brock, The Chemical Tree (n.y.: w.w. Norton, 1993), 276–93. 4 W.J. Reader, Imperial Chemical Industries, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), i: 46–49; F.L. Dick, A Hundred Years of Alkali in Cheshire (Norwich: Imperial Chemical Indus- tries, 1973), 11–12; and J.R. Lischka, Ludwig Mond and the British Alkali Industry (n.y.: Garland Publishing, 1985), 79–85.

2 Introduction and friends, Brunner, Mond’s plant at Winnington, just outside Northwich, Cheshire, took years to build and overcome commissioning problems before turning out profits in 1875.5 Six years later, Brunner, Mond had grown into a limited liability company boasting a registered capital of £600,000, with Solvay et Cie taking a twenty-five percent interest in lieu of future royalty. With the launching of the Solvay Process Company of Syracuse (New York) on an exclu- sive license for the American market in 1880, Brunner, Mond reluctantly with- drew from America in exchange for a partial interest in the new company.6 By 1886 when its patent expired, Solvay had forged a world-wide cartel, reserving Europe for itself while Brunner, Mond served Great Britain and all its domin- ions (including usa until 1887). Linked by cross shareholding, the two companies guarded the technology of the ammonia soda process vigilantly, shared intelligence, fixed prices, and respected the sales zones of competitors such as DuPont and other major American chemical companies until their grand alliance lapsed in 1941 under pressure from the u.s. Justice Department.7 By a gentleman’s agreement, China belonged to Brunner, Mond.8 In 1899, Brunner, Mond dispatched Henry Glendinning to prospect the Chi- na market. The company’s mission was clear: Besides “taking everything possi- ble out of China,” it would strive to “deter such consumers from becoming pro- ducers of alkaline by the ammonia soda process, and to induce consumers … to replace natural products by the manufactured article.”9 At the recommendation of Glendinning, Brunner, Mond lured E.S. Little, Sr. (1864–1939), a Cambridge graduate, away from saving souls for another mission: commodifying British

5 John I. Watts, The First Fifty Years of Brunner, Mond & Co. (N.p., 1923), 7, 23. 6 Brunner, Mond had wanted to protect its export market, including the u.s., and was opposed to any Solvay new works wherever located. See William Haynes, American Chemical Industry, 6 vols. (ny.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1945), i: 271. Major investors in the u.s. company were Solvay & Cie, Brunner, Mond, Rowland Hazard of Rhode Is. and William B. Cogswell of Syracuse. On the Solvay strategy, see David J. Jeremy, ed., International Technology Transfer (Hants, Eng- land: Edward Elgar, 1991), 156; and Bertams, et al., (2013), Chapters 2 and 3. 7 E.N. Trump, “Looking Back at 50 years in Ammonia Soda Alkali,” Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering 40 (1933), 2, 126–28. The arrangement continued in Europe until the 1980s. On the management of the world’s chemical market in this period, see George Stocking and Myron W. Watkins, Cartel in Action (n.y.: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1948), Chapters 9–11; Whyte Wells, Antitrust and the Formation of the Postwar World (n.y.: Columbia University Press, 2002), passim., and Kim Coleman, ig Farben and ici, 1925–53 (London: Palgrave, 2006), passim. 8 Stephen E. Koss, Sir John Brunner: Radical Plutocrat, 1842–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge at the University Press, 1970), 25; and Bertrams (2013), 84. 9 Reader (1970), i: 339; and agreement among Brunner, Mond and Co., Ltd., Castner-Kellner Alkali Co., Ltd., and United Alkali Co., Ltd., dated 30 October 1919 in bm 4686/13.