SHIPBUILDING TRADE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 15 May 1925, Page 8

SHIPBUILDING TRADE.

GERMANY’S BID FOR SUPREMACY. AN ENGLISH CONTR ACT

According to the Daily Mail, the Deutsche Werft, Hamburg, the German. firm mentioned as having scoured the £1,100,000 • contract for six motorships ordered by Messrs. Furness, Withy, and Co.,- is actually the Deutsche Werke, a mysterious 1 company by means of which the Germans are hoping to make their oountiy the centre of the world’s shipbuilding industry. The Hamburg work* are merely a repair works in which the Deutsche Werke have only a part interest.

The British ships will he .built in what were German Imperial shipyards and arsenals, which, unlike British shipyard*,' and arsenals, are to-day the busiest hives of iiidir try of the whole country. The Deutsche Werke took over from the Imperial German Government at the end of the war all its important shipyards arid arsenals. These are at Kiel, Fneclrichsoit, Spandau, Haselhorst. Lippstadt, Cassel, Siegburg, Erfurt, Ambrirg, Ingolstadt, and Dareha.u. Government offices and buildings that have now become headquarters of the’ company — some of the buildings are bigger and more palatial than the L.O.C.’s new County Hall—are at Munich, , Breslau, Leipzig, Essen, Cologne, Konigsberg, and Hamburg. The company also took over the finest technical exports and workmen jn the employ of the German Government. These to-day-form a. large proportion of the 200,000 workers in the employ of the firm, There was no company in the world wealthy enough, to buy outright- such a collection of shipyards and arsenals. It is understood that the basis of the deal was that the Deutsche Werke should make no capital expenditure, hut should keep open the ex-Tm.perial shipyards and arsenals and undertake the running easts.

Massi Production

The British ships will be made at the Kiel Werft of the Deutsche Werke, or what was the Kaiserlic-he Werft. where Germany built its war fleet-. Here they will be constructed on a system of mass production. The parts will be made in the arsenals and giant cranes will distribute them in the .six dry docks., ' The work for the quickest of the six parties of workmen, will set the. pace* for the other five. By mass production the 8000 shipbuilders can simultaneously build eight ships from 330 ft to 590 ft. in length and a. large number of smaller) craft. Every industry in the country is represented in building a .ship. The Germans n.re congratulating themselves that there is no firm in the world that cam compete with this organisation, because no. company could find the necessary capital. They say that mass production i-g chiefly responsible for the lowness of their prices, and.that the British cannot hope to compete with thesi. I