ENGINEERING INDUSTRY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 198, 20 July 1935, Page 5

ENGINEERING INDUSTRY

“RISEN FROM THE ASHES.” NEW ZEALAND INITIATIVE TRIUMPHANT. (By A. E. Mantler.) Of all industries, both primary and secondary, affected by the slump, probably there was none other so severely stricken as that of manufacturing engineering. In 1931 the greater part of the market for products of this industry suddenly collapsed; and within a year the value of its output had shrunk to less than half, while more than half of the industry’s 15,000 workers were thrown out of employment-. Very soon, in every city and large town, found-

ries were empty, and furnaces cold. In scores of engineering works, all over the Dominion, the wheels and belting ceased their droning roar; the clatter of machinery was staled; rows and rows of costly machines stood idle in dark, almost deserted shops, while thousands of highly-skilled and intelligent workers, the very cream of the working class, fitters and turners and toolmakers. were sent to waste their skill on piek-and-shove! relief jobs. It was a thoroughly dispiriting experience, in 1932 or 1933, to walk through so many silent, gloomy, almost deserted foundries and engineering shops, full of idle machines swathed like mummies in sackcloth and oily rags, or else standing cold and uncovered except by dust and greyness. One visitor, at least, several times found himself involuntarily lowering his voice, as though entering a place of death, when he entered the echoing stillness of one of three “dead” factories. Even in those establishments where production was still going on, it

was depressing to see so many machines gaunt and idle, so few workers employed. COURAGE AND RESOURCEFULNESS. How come it, then, that now, only three years later, most of these engineer ing factories are again scenes of intense industrial activity? The wheels are whirring once more, and thousands of workers, so lately unemployed, are onco again bending intently over the machines. Electric motors are humming; keen eyes peer into the circle of brilliant light on a machine where the whirling tool pares and shapes a casting— to the required accuracy of a two-thousandth part of an inch. In the assembly shop there is incessant clanging, and orderly, careful haste. In the foundry, men stand before tho dazzling glare of the furnace, while flashing white molten metal pours into the moulds prepared for it. Interested faces everywhere, and quick strong hands at their own task again! Yet a short while ago the factory was like a morgue, and the workers were out on relief. To what is this transformation due ?

It is a lesult of one of the most enheartening developments that have emerged from the slump. In most cases, these factories are working now on entirely new lines of production—new, that is, to New Zealand. When manufacturers found that the slump had ruined their former business, destroying the market for the kind of goods they had thitherto produced, what did they do? Did they sit down and squeal about hard times? They did not. Many of them—most of them—promptly looked around to see w’hat new’ kinds of goods they could start to make, to take the place of their old lines. “Difficulties,” itissaid, “are opportunities,” Certain ly, in this case, they have proved to be both the test of New Zealand resourcefulness and the opportunity for many of our manufacturers to show what stuff they are made of. As a result, in the engineering industry, as in others, an astonishing number of new developments have taken place during the last few years. Old firms have started new enterprises; plant and manufacturing methods have been completely modernised ; a considerable degree of specialisation has been achieved ; and scores of new lines of production have been successfully'undertaken. VICTORY SNATCHED FROM DISASTER.

Strangely enough, most-of these developments have passed unnoticed by the public. It is evident, even today, that the great majority of people have no conception of the way in which New Zealand industries have progressed; or the manner in which they, have increased their efficiency; or the number of new lines which they have, in the last few years, commenced to manufacture; or the success which has been achieved. It was only a few years for instance, that we were importing from overseas our porcelain-enamelled baths. Nowadays they are nearly all made here in New Zealand; over 70,000 have already been produced and sold, baths of the very highest quality, made in Wellington and Christchurch of iron from Nelson Province. Most people, perhaps, have a notion that wireless sets are “assembled” in the Dominion ; but the truth is that, in addition to local assembly workshops, there are nearly 1000 workers employed not merely assembling, but actually manufacturing complete radio sets (except the valves) which number a large proportion of all the sets sold in New Zealand. Again, it may surprise some people to learn that 35 per cent, of all the picture theatres —including some of the largest—are

equipped with “talkie” plant made in the Dominion. Almost every gas stove sold in New Zealand for some years past has been made in Dunedin or Christchurch. Electric ranges, the production of which was not commenced in earnest until 1932, are now being made—of a quality and finish to compare with the best from overseas —at the rate of £2OOO a year. So one might run on through a very long list—electric petrol bowsers (according to certain overseas experts, probably the best in the world, both in design and in workmanship) ; orchardists’ spray pumps; gas meters; chromium-plated streamline water taps (six million of taps have !>een made); steel furniture and filing cabinets; lawn mowers (manufactured, not merely assembled); electric jugs and kettles, irons, toasters and radiators; milk and cream cans, dairying equipment and machinery; tobacco tins by the million NEW ZEALAND BRAINS AND LABOUR. Considerations of space will not per-mit-hero any indication of the variety of linos now produced by our engineering factories in New Zealand. My chief point, at the moment, is that the majority of these industries have been established and have grown to their present size only during the last few years. They were started, mostly, during the slump; and we can be proud to know that they represent the initiative and the courage of New Zealanders confronted—as the men in this engineering industry were confronted only a few years ago —with the ruin of all that they had built up in the past.

One other section of the industry should be mentioned before we close. What mast people understand by the “assembly” of motor cars is probably something very simple and unimpressive. For them it would he a real “eye-opener” to see the amount of work involved, and the perfect organisation of it, in tho factories where such work is done. The largest, for instance, employs 450 men under one roof, engaged in the complete assembly and finishing of cars at the rate of one every twenty minutes —which means that the work performed is equivalent to 150 men (and goodness knows how many power-machines) working for one hour on each car. When one has seen this, one no longer speaks slightingly of the industry as one of “mere” assembly. Finally, if anyone has still a lingering doubt as to what New Zealand engineers can do, let him call at the nearest railway station to ask when the noxt train will arrive drawn by one of the new (K) locomotives. Gazing at that superb embodiment of throbbing power, no one can fail to pay tribute to the New Zealand brains and New Zealand labour which have achieved its design and construction. Tho=e who still persist in disparaging New Zealand industry, should go and look at a “K” before they speak again.