GERMAN MQNOPOLY CIRCUMVENTED.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15393, 25 September 1915, Page 8

GERMAN MQNOPOLY CIRCUMVENTED.

How German monopoly was circumvented by' New Zealand ingenuity was modestly but lucidly explained by Professor T. H. Easterfield in h. lecture'delivered before the members of the Philosophical Society <it Wellington on Wednesday nijlit. Ho was talking about tho manufacture of searchlight carbons, which, prior to the war, was pre-eminently a. German and Austrian j industry. It was said that only four i veare ago the whole of the British I* lcet was supnlied with Gorman carbons. Carbons "sent for our own forts were j made at Nurenberg by the big German firm of Conradi. It. was also 6tated that a few years ago, before tho war_ began, it was pointed out to the British Government that it would not be able to play any searchlights if war broke ojit, that they wore dependent on foreign carbons, and in consequence the British Government subsidised one or. two firms in England to put down searchlight carbon factories. * Nevertheless, practically tho whole of the world's supply was" made in Germany by Conradi at Nurenberg, Siemens at Charlottonburg, and the rest in Austria. "When the war broke out the Defence Department asked him if he could supply it with searchlight carbons. He was not a manufacturer, and he trusted that he knew something of his own limitations, and beforo be replied he got into touch with -Mr William Ferguson, managing director of the Wellington Gas Company, and Mr Archibald 'Doiigall, and consulted them as to the making of that product. The Gas Companv and various other manufacturers in Wellington had dono everything in their power to assist, and the result was that, they had been able to make a carbon which would do its work.