ENSURING VICTORY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 135, 4 March 1941, Page 8

ENSURING VICTORY

Shipbuilding’s Importance

In Australia

THRIVING INDUSTRY SYDNEY, March 1. “Without ships we cannot hope tj win, but if we can build enough vic tory is assured,” declared the Minister for the Navy, Hr. Hughes, after the launching of H.M.A.S. Bendigo today. Specially equipped for minesweeping, patrol and escort work, and soon to join the' rapidly growing fleet of sister vessels which has already taken rhe water from Australian yards, H.M.A.S. Bendigo becomes, in the words of Mr. Hughes, “another bulwark in Australia’s defence." This launching was the seventh made by the Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Company within a year. That, the Minister said, was a remarkable achievement, and 1 showed of what the Australian shipbuilding industry was capable. That Australia should Lave a thriv ing shipbuilding industry arose naturally out of her circumstances. She was a great island, and her whole economic life depended upon the seaborne commerce that came and went from her shores. Any enemy that sought to in 'tide her would have to comb in ships; aiid our first line of defence lay in the maintenance of adequate sea-power. Expressing confidence in the future <ff the shipbuilding' industry in Australia, Mr. Hughes said the possibilities of expansion were tremendous. “We have built great ships in the past —not only minesweepers and destroyers, but cruisers and merchant ships of large tonnage:—and we must do the same, and more, in the future. “But the expansion of shipbuilding at present is limited by a shortage of skilled labour. This is a pronlem that the unions must face up to; they must see to it that sufficient men are available to take advantage of this opportunity of making Australia secure in the present and of building up an indus-. try that will provide extensive avenues of remunerative employment for unnumbered generations to come.” Unlike other armament industries, the shipbuilding industry would not go out of existence at the end of the war. During the war and after the war the need for ships of all sorts would be acute. That Australia could do the job was being demonstrated daily. “In ore fields, steel works, and engineering shops, work is going ahead on a Commonwealth-wide plan for the production of more and more ships, ’ said Mr. Hughes. “Engineers and boilermakers, electricians, carpenters, shipwrights and the men of many other trades are busy on the urgent job of turning out vessels for the Royal Australian Navy and also for the Admiralty.”