to make a more advanced oven in which we can make superior bricks, and so forth, onward and upward. All the while we seek to find ever better clay and superior admixtures—alumina, silica, magnesite, dolomite, and the like.”
Dr. Nagasaka thought that he was making good progress; but he had underestimated the effect that the mention of bricks would have on the subcommittee chairman.
“Dammit, Ichiro,” Alf Richards errupted, waving his coffee cup in the air, “we can’t think about fancy bricks for kilns when we haven’t even talked about ordinary bricks for construction! That’s one of the things I was going to bring up next. We need to build walls for our houses, foundations for our factories, and piers for our bridges. We’ve talked about lumber and bamboo, but that won’t take care of all our needs. If we can find some decent clay—and I’ve been told there’s plenty of good stuff around—we could start making bricks pretty darn quick.”
Ichiro smiled and bowed, and thereupon gave a demonstration of how the Japanese, in group enterprise, work assiduously toward consensus. Richards also showed that, when he so chose, he could be an eminently congenial negotiator. After about a half hour’s further discussion, a deal was struck. The Joint Planning Subcommittee authorized the establishment of two factories to make bricks.
These were to be located near deposits of clay, and also near a supply of the wood needed for fuel. Several potential sites were suggested, and a small panel of specialists was authorized to select the two that seemed most suitable. At both plants the main product was to be a regular brick for use in construction. But at one of the installations, ten ceramics experts plus fifteen helpers would work exclusively on development of materials suitable for building furnaces. In pursuit of this goal, they would be given special facilities, along with significant operational authority.
The basic brickmaking operation is not overly complex; but it requires muscle power and efficient organization. The clay has to be dug out of the ground, then worked into a wet mash that can be mixed with straw and put into molds. In an alternative method, called the stiff-mud process, the clay is mixed with just enough water to make it plastic, and then it is forced through a rectangular die, coming out in the form of a bar which is cut into brick-size pieces. In either case, a crew then attends to the baking, or firing, in a kiln. The subcommittee, after some rough-and-ready man-hour calculations, decided to assign one hundred workers to each plant.
“One hundred musn’t become a magic number,” one of the committee members piped up. “Let’s not use it hastily to solve every problem that comes along.”
Richards responded: “Look, in the absence of a detailed estimate, this is a convenient, functional unit for our preliminary planning. We use a figure that reflects the order of magnitude that seems to make sense. Call it ‘the One Hundred Strategy,’ if you like. The number of personnel assigned to each activity will, in the course of events, be subject to modification. The important thing is that we get the damned work started.”
The group concurred, and then commissioned a third plant—also with a complement of one hundred—to make other fired clay products such as pipes, floor tiles, roof tiles, and cooking utensils. Finally, they authorized a fourth operation, with fifty workers, to produce cement, which is a blend of clay and limestone also fired in a furnace. After cement has been manufactured, it can be mixed with sand, crushed stone, and water to make concrete. Or it can be mixed with lime, sand, and water, to provide brick mortar.
By the time these decisions were finalized, it was almost noon. Alf Richards was delighted with the morning’s work. Brick, concrete, and mortar, plus a variety of tile products; just
Ichiro Nagasaka also was satisfied. He had accomplished his immediate objective. The manufacture of suitable refractory materials was one of those items that needed someone to serve as champion, or else it might have been ignored. Then, at some future point, everyone would have regretted the oversight.
After lunch, Alf reconvened the meeting and asked Dr. Nagasaka whether he did not want to go on to the larger issue of metals, especially the manufacture of steel.
Ichiro said, “Oh no. Let us move on to other things.” This gave the impression that he did not want to dominate the proceedings with his personal concerns. The strategically minded members of the subcommittee read it another way, and they were right in their suspicion. Knowing that there was absolutely no chance of metals being overlooked, Nagasaka contemplated an end game in which this subject would become the final agenda item, and thus the ultimate focus of attention.
If not metals, then what next? Richards posed the question, and at first there was silence.
Then Gordon Chan spoke. “How about glass?” he asked. “That is another material which our ancestors wrested from the earth with the aid of fiery furnaces, and I suggest that we will be needing some of it in the very near future.”
Surprisingly, this sensible-sounding suggestion met with resis tance. The group had seemingly had its fill of agreement and consensus and was ready for a fight. Put thirty strong-willed individuals together in prolonged, intense discussions and the time comes when they need to blow off some steam. Among several members of the subcommittee there was a growing undercurrent of uncertainty. Aren’t we being cavalier in simply checking off these technologies one after the other? they wondered. Could we really—all at once—grow food, tend livestock, harvest fish from the ocean and timber from the forests, make bricks and other clay products and cement, and plan for the use of metals; in other words, make progress in all conceivable directions simultaneously? Didn’t something have to be postponed, and wasn’t glassmaking a likely place to begin?
Simon Kambule, the leader from the Zulu community who had greeted Gustafsson’s expedition—and had subsequently been asked to serve on the subcommittee—contributed to the chorus of misgivings: “We can get along without glass, for the present, I believe. The immediate needs of the people must be met. And, yes, we must also plan for a return to high technology. But glass does not fit into either category. Glass windows, drinking goblets, and the like are superfluous—mere luxuries. And glassmaking is not such a sophisticated technology that it cannot be readily developed further down the road. In the meantime, since we are not able to do everything at once, why waste any of our limited resources?”
This argument was favorably received by several members of the subcommittee, including Millie Fox. “I don’t recall my Peace Corps people ever mentioning glass as a basic human requirement,” she said.
Alf Richards shrugged and conceded: “Maybe you’re right. We can do a lot of reconstruction work without a ready supply of glass. And, as Mr. Kambule has stated, we must not go off in too many different directions at once.”
There were several more speeches along the same lines, and Kambule’s argument seemed about to carry the day, when Dr. Chan rose to respond.
“Please, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, quietly but commanding attention, “let us not be shortsighted. Although we may not need glass windows right away, or glass insulators until we get electricity, or fiber-optic cables until we near the final stages of our technical journey, we do not want to lose our touch in dealing with these crucial materials.” Then, as his usual pleasant expression turned to a troubled frown, he added, “But there is another factor that is even more important and more immediate. Have you ever seen a science laboratory without glassware? Surely, before we’re done with our preliminary planning, we’ll be providing for research laboratories. They are key to our recovery and future well-being. And, believe me, they will not be of much use without basic equipment, particularly apparatus made of glass.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Simon Kambule, with a rueful smile, withdrew his objection. The subcommittee voted to proceed with the manufacture of glass, and to allocate one hundred workers to the undertaking.
Before leaving the topic of glass, the subcommittee considered the availability of the raw materials needed to make it—silica, soda, and lime. Silica was no problem. Surely there was more sand than anyone knew what to do with. Soda, in the form of potash, they had considered the previous day in discussing the need for potassium in fertilizers. If they did not find suitable natural deposits, they could make the stuff the old-fashioned way, by burning vegetable wastes and boiling the ashes in a pot. As for lime, the third basic ingredient—needed to make glass durable—one simply burns, or calcines, limestone.
“It is worth noting,” Gordon Chan added, “that lime is a basic industrial chemical with many important applications. For example, it is used in manufacturing paper, as a flux in making steel, and—Mr. Richards, as a builder you probably know this—it is a key material in the manufacture of cement and mortar.”
“That is very true,” said Eric Steenkamp, the mining engineer from Pretoria, “but as far as I know, limestone
