MODERNISING HUN TRADE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16209, 6 December 1926, Page 5

MODERNISING HUN TRADE

BIGGER OUTPUT: FEWER HANDS. BERLIN, October 21. Remarkable figures are given by Vorwarts to show the results already obtained by the •modernisation and improved organisation of the German heavy industry. Before the war Germany required 204 blast furnaces for a monthly production of 910,000 tons of raw iron, whereas in September, 1925, she produced 77)5,000 tons with, 96 furnaces, and in August last 850,000 with 84. In the year the output per furnace rose from 7600 tons to 10,100, or%y 31 per cent. Since last September ' the number of men employed on blast furnaces has fallen from '21,000 to 17,000, so that the output per head has increase ed by 37 per cent. The monthly steel production during the same yeai rose from 900,000 tons to I,l4o,ooo'tons, and the efficiency of labor by 44 per cent., the number of hands employed falling from 28,000 to ,25,000. These figures ar© partial explanation both for the extraordinary rise in industrial* shares since the beginning of the year and for the large number of unemployed, which the Germans still i plead as a proof of a trade slump and [consequent poverty.