AT WORK

Southland Times, Issue 21606, 19 January 1932, Page 7

AT WORK

BRITISH INDUSTRIES’ ENTERPRISE.

HUGE OVERSEAS CONTRACTS. There is evidence on every hand that Great Britain, despite the world trade, upheaval, is hard at work securing and filling orders for overseas.

According to recent reports, there are 114,000 fewer unemployed in Great Britain than there were five weeks ago. These figures have added importance, owing to the fact that this decrease in unemployment occurs at a time when normally the volume of unemployment is on the increase, in Great Britain. Compared with the corresponding five weeks of last year, the unemployment is 215,000 less. A fact for which we in New Zealand should all be devoutly thankful. . t -i Contracts running into hundreds of millions of pounds are being carried out by British firms in almost every country of the world. Contracts for hundreds of thousands of pounds are being fulfilled on electricity ’ extensions all over Great Britain. One-third of the world’s shipping tonnage sails under the Union Jack. In spite of the world slump in trade, Britain has paid for all her imports without drawing on capital. Last year Great Britain sold ships and machinery to the world worth more than one hundred million pounds. British engineers are now building bridges all over the world costing thirty million pounds. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, costing seven million pounds, the largest single arch bridge in the world, is being built by a British firm.

For ten years, China has been buying railway material from Belgium. She has now placed contracts with British firms worth three and a half million pounds. South Africa has ordered iron and steel worth two and a half million pounds. Greece has ordered plant wprth half a million pounds for the conversion of lignite into charcoal.

The Portuguese Government recently signed a contract with Vickers’ for warship armament worth approximately eight hundred thousand pounds. Four Portuguese destroyers are being built on the Clyde. Poland is spending approximately six hundred thousand pounds on British material for the extension of her telephone gystem.

Hungary has ordered material for railway electrification worth six hundred thousand pounds. Last year aeroplanes and aircraft parts were sold abroad, worth two million pounds. A contract for aeroplanes for Argentina has been placed in Britain worth one hundred thousand pounds. Belgium has ordered fifty-five fast fighting machines for its army. A two million pound contract for raising the Assuam dam has been given to a British firm.

British engineers are carrying out an extension on a harbour in Cyprus costing two hundred thousand pounds. Guns costing eighty thousand pounds are being made for the Spanish Government at Elswick.

Hundreds of locomotives, and thousands of locomotive and carriage wheels, are being produced for railways in India, South America, China, Egypt and South Africa. South Wales is building the largest pressed-steel tank in the world for a Punjab water scheme.

A' thousand tons of British machinery have been ordered for Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, the heart of the American steelproducing industry. The Great Western Railway is engaged on a development scheme costing eight and a-half million pounds. The total amount of payments to the United States of America, on account of British war debts, to date, is three hundred and twenty six million pounds. The total amount received by Britain on account of Allied war debts is seventy one million pounds. Payments by Britain having exceeded payments to Britain by the enormous sum of two hundred and twentyfive million pounds. Thus you will see that Britain is not only out after business, but what is still more gratifying, is getting it. Durin'g these difficult times, we may, wilh sympathy and admiration, think of Britain as having fully justified the following magnificent tribute which was paid to her by Emerson during the dark days of the Crimean War: Emerson wrote:—“l see her, not dispirited nor weak, but remembering that she has seen dark days before; indeed, with a kind of instinct, that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity she has a secret vigour and a pulse like cannon. I see her in her old age, not decrepit, but young and still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion. Seeing this, I say, All Hail Mother of Nations, Mother of Heroes, with strength still equal to the time; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the mind and heart of mankind requires in the present hour; and thus, only hospitable to the foreigner, and truly a home to the thoughtful and generous who are born in the soil. So be it! So let it be!”

Is New Zealand doing her part? It is essential that the people of New Zealand should realize that their future, as well as that of their cousins in ' other dominions, is definitely tied up with the prosperity of Great Britain. She cannot afford to continue to lend us money, or even to trade with us, unless we do more for her in return. It is well to remember that in the season 1930-31 Great Britain took 20,000 more tons of our butter than the previous year and so helped us out of a very difficult situation. There is increasing evidence that people in the Dominion are taking greater interest in Great Britain’s products, particularly her motor products, but the idea of trading and confining purchases wherever possible to products of Great Britain has not yet attained the significance with New Zealanders that it must surely do if our economic future is to be assured.