BRITISH INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21117, 26 February 1932, Page 13

BRITISH INDUSTRY.

STANDARDISATION SCHEME.

CO-ORDINATION IN EMPIRE,

- ORGANISER IN AUCKLAND-

The of standardising the products [ industry, as worked out by the British Standards Institution, is hardly known in jjew Zealand, but much more is likely to be heard of it in the near future, as the result of .the visit of Mr. C. lo Maistre, the director of the institution, to the Dominion. Mr. lo Maistre, who is visiting {he Dominions in fulfilment of the wishes 0 f the last Imperial Conference, is at present. m Auckland. His dual mission is to promote personal contact between the standardising bodies in the Dominions and Britain, and to seek the co-ordination of ,{he industrial standard specifications issued in the,different parts of the Empire. Ho C oni(s at the invitation of the New Zealand Government and with the full backing of the British Board of Trade and the Empire Marketing Board. "I am told I have come to New Zealand just at the psychological moment," E aid Mr. le Maistre yesterday. "You are looking eagerly for something to help in the rehabilitation of your industrial life. The standardising movement conducted on • lines to be right would seem to offer a means of introducing real co-opera-tion into this country to the benefit of everybody concerned, and to the help of cur Empire." -- The Imperial Conference on standardisation of 1950, at which New Zealand was represented by Dr. E. Marsden and others, recommended each Government to

form a national standardising organisation, tut Mr. le Maistre has been surprised to find tho report almost unknown here. During a stay of seven weeks in Australia he found the keenest interest in Empire standardisation, and it is likely, he gays, that Australia will set up a central co-ordinating advisory committee in London. The British Standards Institution has four divisions, engineering, chemical, building and textile, and its purpose is to standardise the products of these industries according to agreed specifications for the mutual benefit of producer and consumer. All Government departments arc ■ instructed to/use British standard specifications wherever they exist. At present there is no standardising organisation in the Dominion, but Mr. le ■Maistre hopes before he leaves to secure the co-ordination of various bodies already in existence in such matters as drawing ■up rules and regulations and dealing with specifications for materials. This would apply, for instance, in the rebuilding of the "devastated earthquake area. One of the great advantages of such a central - committee as Mr. "le Maistre proposes is : that it could tell the British Standards Institution tho industrial requirements of Js T e\v Zealand. ]Ur. le Maistre is to attend a conference in Wellington on March 1 for the purpose of giving effect to the recommendations of the Imperial Conference on standardisation. "I have every confidence," said Mr. le Maistre, New Zealand, where I have found so much sympathy with the ideas I have put forward, will come into line with the other Dominions and tho • Old Country."