THE PRIME MINISTER IN ENGLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23247, 20 July 1937, Page 4

THE PRIME MINISTER IN ENGLAND

VISIT TO THE HOME OF “ HIS MASTER’S VOICE” MR SAVAGE SEES A CABARET SHOW BY WIRELESS A cabaret ’show miles away was one of the many features of interest seen by Mr Savage, Prime Minister, on his recent visit to the factories of “ His Master’s Voice ” at Hayes, Middlesex. The “ turn an item in the regular transmissions broadcast from the Alexandra Palace, London—was viewed on one of the latest " His Master’s Voice ” television receivers, and Mr Savage expressed his surprise and admiration at the clearness of the picture. The party accompanying Mr Savage included Mr W. J. Jordan, High Commissioner, Mr C. A. Jeffrey, private secretary, and Mrs Jeffrey, Mr H. T. Drew, publicity officer, and Mrs Berendsen. The visitors had been welcomed to Hayes by Sir Louis Sterling, managing director of Electric and Musical Industries, the controlling company of “His Master’s Voice,” and were conducted on their tour of the factories by Mr W, T. Forse, controller of factories. The group of “ His Master’s Voice” factories extends over an area of 60 acres and forms a veritable township in itself. During peak periods as many as 15,000 skilled workers are engaged in the making of “His Master’s Voice” radiogramophones, gramophones and gramophone records. There are six main blocks of buildings which consist of the machine factory, the cabinet factory, and the record factor and stores, the assembly building, the research laboratories and the administrative offices. The first building to, be inspected was the machine factory, a huge, structure of six floors, housing what is considered by experts the finest plant of machinery in Europe. In the punch press department Mr Savage was greatly interested and impressed by the rows and rows of huge presses—over 100 all .told — some of which exert a pressure of 1000 tons in fashioning such things as gramophone turn-tables, basic radio chassis, and many other parts from sheet metal, with accuracy to the thousandth of an inch. On another floor of this building is the automatic screw department, where batteries of lathes and cutting machines take in bars of metal at one end and pour out at the other end a ceaseless stream of brightly-shin-ing nuts, bolts and screws. On other floors the production and partial assembly of the smaller radio and gramophone components takes place. At peak periods 2,000,000 parts a day are manufactured in this one building, from which they are conveyed to the main assembly building. On the way to the assembly building the party passed through the coil finding department, where the rapidly-spinning bobbins on 250 machines give the impression of a Lancashire cotton mill. Fifty thousand Coils a day are wound here for tunings components, transformers, loud-speakers and gramophone “pick-ups.”' That takes 400,000 miles of wire, or enough to go around the world 16 times! Such figures, surely, give some idea of the popularity of “ His Master’s Voice ” radio-gramophones and radios. In the main assembly building the building up of a complete radio receiver from a chassis by the addition of hundreds of components is seen, and also the stringent tests by means of a variety of intricate electrical gear that all chassis undergo at the various stages of assembly. The “life story” of the cabinets in which the chassis are mounted was followed with great interest , . . . beginning with the huge piles of carefully seasoned wood in the timber yards, then to the automatic drying kilns, and the saw mills where saws of all sizes and descriptions “ break down ” the timber into suitable lengths, and to the cabinet factory where the processes of construction are carried out and the completed cabinets are stained and polished. While many operations here are performed by machinery, there is much done by hand, for no machinery alone can give the evidence of work of the finest craftsmen that is characteristic of “His Master’s Voice” cabinets.

The tour over, the visitors took tea in the board room, over the fireplace of which is the original painting by Francis Barraud, R.A., of the fox terrier listening to the gramophone of early design. This picture is now known all the world over as “ His Master’s Voice ” trade mark. At the conclusion of the tour, Mr Savage expressed his admiration for the care and skill that went into the production of “ His Master’s Voice ” products. He was also very pleased to know that such a large number of these British-made radios and radio-gramophones were destined for the dominions and colonies, including New Zealand, where, he said, the name “ His Master’s Voice” was as much a household word and had as high a reputation as in England itself.