MORE INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 23 June 1937, Page 7

MORE INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

STRESSED BY LORD McGOWAN The need for more research in industry to improve methods of production was stressed by Lord McGowan, Chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries, speaking here recently at the annual general meeting of the company last month. “It is essential,'’ he said “that industrial corporations should take advantage of existing good conditions ' to put their house in order; that they should out of to-day’s surplus earnings equip themselves with the most up-to-date plant procurable so that they shall have the lowest operating cost possible.” A necessary corollary to this, he continued, was the necessity of spending more and more on research. “It is only by doing so.” he said, “that we can improve the working and consequent efficiency of known processes, the quality of our raw materials —even the substitution of more effective raw materials —and meet the necessity of finding new lines of manufacture.” In protected countries, he continued, governments could claim they were doing what they could for industry and it was surely not too much for those governments to expect industrial leaders in return to see that industry was kept efficient. This could only be done by spending money on research. Speaking of the trade prospects for for 1937, Lord McGowan said that with the world-wide tendency to rising commodity prices, with a policy of rearmament and with no likelihood of any serious setback in general building activity there seemed to be no reason to anticipate any decline in the general level of the country’s activity. It did not follow, however, that profits would show the same tendency. Rises in the prices of raw materials had to be faced and the increases in wages would add substantially to their costs. “While we have little doubt of the

volume of home trade,” he continued, “we find it difficult to contemplate the situation in export markets with equal confidence.” However much, he said, we might disapprove of economic nationalism it was “a tide we cannot stem.” “The world will always conduct a considerable volume of international trade.” Lord McGowan said, “but coupled with that necessity we must recognise and meet for many years, I think, the natural desires of great nation and even small ones to use their powers in such a manner that their national life presents fairly well-balanced industrial and agricultural activities.”

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