SMALLER BRITISH INDUSTRIES

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25735, 22 February 1949, Page 5

SMALLER BRITISH INDUSTRIES

PRESENT PROSPERITY IN MIDLANDS

FEW WORKERS’ WORRIES ABOUT EMPLOYMENT (From A. W. MITCHELL., Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec 7 , p m - ) LONDON, Feb. 2L Workers Wanted” notices may oe seen outs| de many factories in the Midlands to-day. This area, stated by the Ministry of Labour in its latest employment returns to be one of the most prosperous In the country is making an important contribution to Britain s export drive. "We are at the peak of our production and going flat out. We can produce more only by securing additional skilled labour and materials, but ever since the war we have been short of both,” said a member of a firm near Birmingham. There seems little doubt that In the industrial ereas the average working man and his family have fewer acute financial problem* than a decade ago. It is true that money generally is tighter to-day, and that there is less in the average pocket than there was during the war, but except for a few industrial areas there is work and pay for,all who want it, Britain hnay still need more and more exports, the seller s market may be hardening, and any sudden ending of Marshall Aid could throw up to 1,500.000 people out of work- but in the meantime the British working man and woman have no undue worries about employment, and the dole is a spectre of the fast-dim-ming thirties. Smaller Industries . These were impressions gained during a brief tour of Midland cities arranged by the Ministry of Supply for overseas correspondents. The purpose was to visit smaller industries which, though they receive less publicity than coal, steel, and shipbuilding, nevertheless make an important contribution to the British economy bv their numbers and the diversity of their products. In many of these smaller industries the family firm, very often founded last century, is prosperous and has pride in .its craftsmen, some of whom may have been with it for 40 and 50 years. Some of these Arms have world monopolies or have established a leadin- place for themselves With specialised products Manufacturers of lace machinery in Nottingham, for instance, have a world monopoly. Their knowledge and skill have been .handed on by succeeding generations. You may see men who have worked at the Mme bench for nearly half a century, and orra man at east has worn the steel handle of his hammer into grooves, so that it appears to have been carved. Exports of lace machinery have increased since the war. but the lace manufacturer no doubt realises that the exported machinery must in the long run compete with his own product. Needles and Lenses Needle-making, which was handed On in the Redditch area by lay brothers and monks after the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century, is another smaller British industry. The chief competitors before the war were Germany and Japan, but today Britain is the world s principal supplier, especially of hand-sewing needles, with a large market in the United States. Since 1939 Britain's exports of needles have trebled and their value has increased five time*. Nearly 50 different processes are reouired in the producing of a needle. One firm is turning out 25,000,000 a week, buying steel wire at £3O a ton and shipping it abroad as needles worth £2OOO a ton. Another firm specialises in photographic lenses, and before the war supplied 90 per cent, of the lenses used in the Hollywood film studios. It also claims to have made every lens so far used in the making of Technicolor films. An American company, recognised as making some of the finest cine equinment in the world, buys nearly all its lenses from this comcany. It was started in the eighties by two brothers, who decided to produce “things which nobody else could be bothered to make.” To-day it employs 900 people. It manufactures tools in addition to lenses, and exports to 60 countries. A larger firm, started in 1815. now employ* 3000 people in factories covering 40 acres. Among other things, it specialises in lighthouse equipment, and sunnlies it to countries all over the world, including New Zealand. It also produces a wide range of glassware. from tumblers to cathode ray tubes.

Pakistan and Jugoslavia.— lt is officially announced that Pakistan and Jugoslavia have signed a trade agreement. Jugoslavia will supply railway sleepers, cement, asbestos roofing, maize, and chemicals. Pakistan will send jute, cotton, and other commodities.—Karachi, Feb. 20.