BRITISH WIRE ROPE CONTRACTS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21940, 14 November 1936, Page 10

BRITISH WIRE ROPE CONTRACTS

TO THE EDITOE OJT THE PBESS. Sir In justice to the British wire rope’makers, may I be permitted to state that some time ago I received an authoritative statement from England, issued by one of the organs concerned with the wire rope industry, which stated that the Auckland Harbour Board had not laid bare all the facts in connexion with its former tenders for wire rope. It is admitted that the wire rope makers have their own federation to protect the industry and incidentally to assist it to carry on by the elimination of cut-throat competition. After all. the industry gives employment to a very large number of British workers, and the federation has succeeded in preventing cut-thrcat competition, which is no good to any industry. The complaint against the Auckland Harbour Board concerning its earlier tenders is that, when it threw the tendex's open to foreign as well as British firms, it issued a fresh specification, which was below the first specification. The British “tenderers lowered their quotation in exact proportion to the reduction in specifications issued on the second occasion. This was the reason, and only reason, for the lower tender, and not. as it has been made out, because Germans were tendering. The British wire rope industry cannot compete against the sweated labour cf the Germans, with their Govern-ment-assisted and bonus-fed exports, coupled with barter payments.—Yours, etc. ARTHUR D. FORD. November 11, 1936.