ABSTRACT
Partly this was a matter of mere good fortune. A strong American challenge, for example, based on a clear-cut competitive advantage in the building of wooden sailing ships, faded into insignificance with the outbreak of the Civil War. Renewal of the challenge after the war was forestalled by the shift to iron and steel ships propelled by steam and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 , the latter virtually guaranteeing a near-monopoly of the crucial Eastern trade to improved British steamers.2 But, of far greater importance, it was the ability of the British to capitalize on their unique resource endowments, capital, and skills that assured their continued predominance. Easily accessible coal and iron ore deposits furthered the development of the iron and steel industry; relatively cheap, high-grade iron and steel, coupled with available marine engineering skills, promoted the growth and transformation of shipbuilding; and British coal-fired ships, assured of abundant supplies of high-grade fuel and of an outbound cargo in the form of export coal, carried British goods economically to all parts of the world and brought back in exchange the foods and raw materials so necessary to British economy. The importance of coal in this sequence is evident. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the process of change and consequences when oil replaced coal as fuel for the world’s ocean-going fleet.
