FRANCE AND ARMS FIRMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1937, Page 14

FRANCE AND ARMS FIRMS

SCHNEIDER-CREUSOT CONTROL. PARIS, March 13. By a decree published to-day in the “Journal Ofliciel,” the Government nationalises all the armament sections of the great Schneider-Creusot firm. This is the first important step towards the ultimate complete control of arms factories by the State, provided' for bv the Bill passed on August 11, 193 G. The Schneider-Creusot concern manufactures bridges, ’ boilers, ships, locomotives and steel for non-military purposes. This part of its work will not bo nationalised. The situation is complicated by the fact that the firm turns out artillery, torpedoes, armour-plate and munitions' not only for France, but also for Russia, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Jugoslavia, Japan, and other countries. It is expected however, that large foreign contracts will bo transferred to the .Skoda works iu Czechoslivakia, which are controlled bj* SchneiderCreuisot. The company, which is owned by

I members of one of the so-called “Two Hundred Families of France,” has a capital of about £1,000,000, but in 1936 its dividends totalled £200,000. It is the biggest organisation of its' kind on the Continent. The Government’s'decree says: “The workshops and special machinery utilised for the manufacture of war material by the Schneider armaments firm at Le Creusot are expropriated by the French State. “The expropriation concerns the sites built upon or otherwise and utilised for armaments works, as described in the documents drafted by the engineering branch of the Army at Dijon, on March 10, 1937, the machinery, tools, and stocks of every kind, including material in process of manufacture at present in the expropriated buildings, as well as all such war material destined for armaments, manufacture situated in the uhexpropriated part of the works, an inventory of which is to be drawn up. “Tho Schneider works shall be taken over by the War Department at a date to be fixed subsequently by the Minister of National Defence and. War.” Numerous smaller companies, in.-

eluding three aeroplane factories, have already been nationalised. When the process is completed, the army and the air force will be practically on the' same footing as the French navy, which carries out its building and armaments programmes almost exclusively in State dockyards. In the case of aircraft factories the position is somewhat complicated since most of these are primarily concerned with the manufacture of motor vehicles and parts.