EXTENSION OF A LOCAL INDUSTRY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1910, Page 3

EXTENSION OF A LOCAL INDUSTRY.

MATCHMAKING PREMISES. Tho recent amalgamation of the old match-making firms of Bryant find May and R. Bell and Co., in New Zealand, has been followed by extension of the buildings and plant afc the factory at Newtown, oWginally erected many years ago. Mr. W. C. Chalfield, architect, was instructed by tho new company to draw up a scheme for the reconstruction of and additions to the existing pie miees, in order to bring them up to the full requirements of the new system of match manufacture, in compliance with recent legislation. The first contract for the new scheme was let for a building 132 ft long by 32ft wide, and 17ft high to the top of the walls. This building, which is splendidly lighted, hits been completed, and new jnadiinevy is bping installed in it for wooden matchmaking on entirely new principles. The machinery is difficult to describe, but it has not inaptly been likened to a huge ftying-machine. The second contract, for which tenders are now called, will consist of clearing away old premises in ' which maloh-making has for so long been carried on, and providing for the new system. A brick building 100 ft long by 40ft wide, and of two stories, is to be erected. H-ere matches will bo filled and boxed by machinery. Attached to the building will be a tower 15ft squaro and 55ft high, in four stories. A watertank will bs carried in the tower, from which the Grinnel sprinkler system will bo served. The factory chimney will be attached to the tower. Both floors t>l the building will be 14ft high,' with abundant light and ventilation. The building will be most strongly constructed throughout, and provided with fire-escapes. In tho main factory. 100 ft by 60ft, at the present time the dipping and boxing of vestas is being carried on. Provision is made for extending the buildings and plant as the trade grows. It is hoped that the lorally-made wooden matches will in time take the place of those imported from Belgium and Sweden. Tho use of poisonous phosphorus in matches nas been discontinued Dy the firm in London for the past nine years, and it will not be used h<*ro. The Wellington factory was established sixteen years ago. When the new Wellington factory is fully running it will be able to turn out 400 miles of matches a day. or nearly three-quarters of a mile of matches a minute. N?w Zealand and Australia, it has been discovered, Jse more matches per head than any other countries in the world, duo to there being more men than women, to tho growth of cigarette-smoking, and to such a large proportion of the population working in, the open air, and therefore smoking. '