SHIPBUILDING IN BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 April 1934, Page 4

SHIPBUILDING IN BRITAIN.

The recent merger of the Cunard-White Star shipping interests has given shipbuilding in Britain a great impetus towards recovery. The most recent cabled message states that work on the giant Cunarder, the hull of which has lain untouched by the builders at Clydebank for over two years, will commence to-morrow, when it is anticipated that all the men now on the dole will be reabsorbed into their ordinary occupations. It was stated when negotiations were begun with the Government for financing the giant vessel that if it could be completed it would give immediate employment to 1500 men and that the number of workers indirectly benefited would amount to .many thousands in various parts of the country.'; The shipbuilding industry in Britain Kias felt the (

depression severely. In Clydebank alone in the year 1927 there were 140,000 workers employed in building ships. Five years later scarcely a ship yard or engineering works was working at full pressure. Many of them were shut up, and the number of unemployed had risen, in a population of 50,000, from 1000 in 1927 to over 9000 at the end of 1932. Early in 1933 Admiralty orders gave the Clyde yards their first opportunity for recovery. Since then five shipbuilding yards and three engineering works have re-opened, and 4000 men have gone back to normal employment. With the completion of the giant Cunarder assured, and the prospect of a similar vessel being built at a later date, the outlook for shipbuilding on the Clyde should be brighter than for many years. It is a district in which New Zealand is making strenuous efforts to increase sales of meat and dairy produce. The Dominion has therefore a definite interest in the welfare of the Clyde shipbuilding industry.