MASS PRODUCTION

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 259, 2 August 1928, Page 9

MASS PRODUCTION

INCREASING IN BRITAIN REPLACING SMALL WORKSHOPS (British Ollicial Wireless.) Rugby, July 31. The annual report of factories and workshops for the year 1927 shows that while the number of registered factories and the number of registered worksimps had dropped from 121,861 to 117,066, this change in the relative proportion of factories and workshops has been going on now for many years. During the last 20 years factories have increased by almost 40 per cent., while workshops have fallen by 26 per cent., this fall having taken place in the dressmaking, tailoring, bootmaking, laundry, and baking industries. It is not to be assumed that (lie total volume of these industries has fallen. The change is rather an indication that the small employer tends to drop out of existence, and that mass production in highly-organised establishments is steadily replacing the village and rural workshop. The increase in factories is specially noticeable in regard to hosiery, indiarubber, and foodstull's, including butter, cheese, condensed milk, and margarine. Another feature to which lite report calls attention is the tendency for the industry to develop in and around London anil in Ilia Soiith-cas' of England generally. The industries represented are esseutially of a miscellaneous character, and afford employment to both sexes in about an equal degree, witli a steady demand for the services of young people.