TWO EXPENSIVE WORDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21530, 30 December 1931, Page 12

TWO EXPENSIVE WORDS

SACRIFICE OF MILLIONS PATRIOTISM OF A BRITON. By writing on a cablegram form the words “Nothing doing,” a man who is now in London signed away a fortune of £3,400,000. This man is Mr Harold Richardson, ot London, Ontario, one of the inventors of modern battleship armour plating. The offer of millions which he so lightly refused was made by the great American steel king, Mr Charles M. Schwab, head of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, one of the largest industrial concerns in the world, says the Sunday Express. The man who threw away the millions lighted a cigar when he was asked about it in England lately. “Ever worked in a bank?” he began, “No? Well, I served a sentence of 22 years in banks, and when 1 retired I took up the study of metals. “ That was round about 1908, and Britain was then trying to find a new and tougher steel for her battleships. I cxnerimcntcd with the molybdenum alloy and evolved a new formula for the manufacture of steel. “ I came to England • and Lord Inveruairn’listened to my theories and told me to go ahead at the Parkhead Forge, Glasgow, the headquarters of the great Beardmore foundries. I spent two years in the laboratory, and at the foundry made hundreds of experimental armour Mates. Then, one day I knew I had perfected my foi'innla and we had an armour plate eight feet by 12 and six inches thick. ■ “The plate was taken down to the naval gunnery base, and gunners banged away at it for hours with six-inch shells from a range of 100 feet. They I ailed to penetrate it, “ News of the success of the test reached (he United States, and Mr Schwab offered me a royalty of £4 a loti, guaranteeing me £200,000 a year in royalties for 17 years. “ 1 wanted Britain to have my new process, and so I just cabled to New York. ‘Nothing doing’; just 12 letters, but each letter cost mo nearly £300,000. “ Well, I was already fairly rich, and ] made a comfortable fortune from my steel, so I have no regrets. Britain has been building her warships with my steel ever since 1912.”