ANGLO-AMERICAN INDUSTRY.

Star (Christchurch), 21 January 1903, Page 2

ANGLO-AMERICAN INDUSTRY.

A somewhat novel theory has guided the Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Trust (says the London correspondent of the Melbourne " Age ') in the choice of a «te for a British branch of its business. In America this trust employs 5000 workmen, and now it proposes to have on this side of the Atlantic a factoi-y which will employ 4000 and aim at supplying its wares to all Jiurope and to British countries. Ordinarily such businesses prefer to locate .themselves -within easy distance of some central English p"brt. The '!'::.;■> 1 Trust has chosen a site a.it Frmsefburg, . iil tie town in Aberdeenshire. But why \ .Scotland? is the'question being asked, iiatu- , rally enough. The answer is given by Mr Maconochie, M.P., chairman of the British Board of Directors. "We have determined to start there," he says, " because of the kind of labour to be had and the remote- j ness from towns. If you baive ai man training for athletics, you put him in the surroundings where he can develop his best. So it should be with keeping your workmen in good form, if you began on a rational busi.s. Everything is against, the man in a, big city. He has a hundred things to distmct and tempt him; he breathes vitiated air, rent is high, and many expenses accumulate. I a,m convinced that the hope of much manufacturing enterprise in the future will lie in getting the works away fromi cities.'' The factory will be controlled by American managers and manned by British workmen, and Mr Maconochie thinks the result will be " the finest rndustrial combination possible." There is some ground for his expectation in the remarkable results achieved by the American j managers who showed a year ago what could be done with the British bricklayers engaged on the electrical factory at Manchester. •■ .