ENGINEERING INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 109, 4 November 1926, Page 10

ENGINEERING INDUSTRY

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Your review of the local engineering industry in the special trade number of the "Evening Post," and the later report of a Duncdin communication cm engineering in England, is very disquieting. You found the industry in New Zealand was languishing, and the other item showed that England is fast becoming an assembling ahop for Italian and American work. Indeed, these facts are more than previously suggested, but they are alarming from our point of view, for we have hitherto been pleased with the thought that the British Empire—with the Mother Country at the head—waa paramount in this intellectual portion of the world's work. Whilst bearing no malice towards our foreign competitors it is certainly unpleasant to feel that we are being beaten, and I the situation calls for a general stocktaking, otherwise pride will receive a I shock and we shall have to play second fiddle to# other nations. Employers in New Zealand seem to be content to struggle on with out-of-date plants, and I suppose there is the same conservative disposition in the British portion of the industry. On the other hand, craft unions, tradesmen's associations, and like close corporations, assume the duty of protecting the trade, and thereby shield a large percentage of "duds" from the searching analysis which would otherwise be made. Enough conservatism on methods of production, and sufficient bolstering up of incompetency by the craft unions, and our position is hopeless. We must drop our medieval methods i£ we mean to regain and hold our place as the greatest engineering nation.—l am, etc.,

PROGRESS,