THE AMERICAN WAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17264, 4 September 1916, Page 3

THE AMERICAN WAY.

ESTABLISHING AN INDUSTRY. During the course of an address on his impressions of America delivered by Mr Robert Bell at the Masonic Hall at Ashburtou on Thursday evening, the speaker gave an account of how the boot industry had been established in the town of Columbia, Missouri. Tho Hamilton Brown Shoe Company, of St Louis, let it be known that it was proposed to build a factory for tho nianulacture of footwear in one of the smaller towns in the £tate if suitable arrangements could bo entered into with too local controlling authority, or, foiling that, a responsible body of commercial men.

The company's proposal was that it should receive from tne community, in which it built and equipped a factory, a cash bonus of 60,Ut»u dollars and a suitable area of land as a site for a factory, the site to bo connected with the railway by a siding, and also linked up with the local wa'ter supply. The company would prefer for its purpose a small town, as a better class of worker was usually available there, labour disputes were" less frequent, and generally healthier living conditions prevailed for tho workers. Tho company, for its part, would contract to build and equip a factory on the site provided, guarantee to employ not fewer than 300 workers, and expend not less than a given sum per week in wages for a period of ten years. , . There was considerable competition among tho smaller towns of Missouri for the privilego of getting the factory established within thoir boundaries, and the. choice of the company finally fell on Columbia, which is the seat of education in the State. It cost the local committee, which handled the proposition, in all 70,000 dollars—that is, 60,000 for the cash bonus and 10,000 for the site and linking it up with t ho railway and water supply system, the commi'tteo recouped its heavy expenditure by purchasing a block or land, and. after apportioning out of it the factory site, cutting up the balance into 300 lots and selling them at oM) dollars each thus actually netting a profit of 20,000 dollars on the transae"Tlio industry has now been established for eight years, employs 500 hands and turns out 1,000,000 dollars' worth of boots and shoes per annum.