Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/96

 his memorial with drawings and details of the puddling furnaces and rolling-mills abroad, and simply submits the expediency of encouragement by the Government to those who will undertake the manufacture in Sweden.

The treatment which this eminently reasonable and practical memorial received at the hands of the Diet and the Royal College of Mines goes far to convince us that Swedenborg had reason to complain of the want of response to his genius in his own country and home. The memorial was read before the Committee on the business of the Diet, April 20, 1723; by them it was referred to the Committee on Mining and Commerce, where it was read May 7th. By the Diet it was referred to the King, by whom it was submitted to the Royal College of Mines and to that of Commerce, Aug. 10, 1725. It arrived in the Royal College of Mines, Aug. 23, 1725, and was filed for future reference, Sept. 1, 1726. In the course of three years and a half, a matter which would properly have commended itself for instant action is filed away for future reference! So slow were the Swedes to manufacture the Swedes iron, now in demand throughout the world.