BRITISH STEEL INDUSTRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20379, 10 April 1928, Page 8

BRITISH STEEL INDUSTRY.

A STEADY RECOVERY. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, April 9. That the British iron and steel industry is steadily recovering from its post-war depression is the opinion of Mr Albert Russell, of Wellington, director of Messrs, J. J. Niven and Co., who reached Auckland by the Maunganui after a 15 months’ tour of Great Britain the Continent, and the United States. Mr Russell found that the industry was genuinely reorganising, and by the co-operation of the employers and the workers was putting itself on to an economic basis. Formerly there had been room for criticism on the financial side, but much had been done in the way of eliminating out-of-date plant and reducing waste to a minimum. The industry could now meet foreign competition bn equal terms. Th e manufacturers had really " got down to costs,” and the quality of their output had not suffered. Apart from America, the most important competitor was Belgium, but although they could offer goods at low prices the Belgian concerns had failed to keep quality up to the British standard. Germany was not a serious rival except, perhaps, in steel rails. Altogether the outlook for British metal manufactures was very bright.