H—44A

The committee examined 5 British standards and 9 American standards, directing circulation of these to the affected interests for comment, and set, up an Executive Committee to review the comments received and to make suitable to the parent committee. The value of this work is well evidenced by a statement from the United States of America to the effect that standardization increased the efficiency of gas appliances and resulted in raising the heating capacity of cookers by 50 per cent. T and that of water heaters by 25 per cent., in relation to the quantity of gas used. The same statement emphasized that efficient apparatus is necesssary to avoid the hazard of carbon monoxide which is so dangerous to health. Packaging Sectional Committee (Two meetings) As a result of representations from shipping interests, supported by commercial and workers' organizations, the development of standard codes and specifications for containers has been initiated. The substantial economic loss due to the use of inadequate and unsuitable containers and to poor packaging has demonstrated the absolute necessity for the development of such codes and specifications. Evidence brought forward has. shown that loss and waste of valuable cargo occurs on a considerable scale, due to the use of cartons, cases, and metal containers inadequate to withstand the stresses of transit. Further instances quoted have shown that poisonous, corrosive, explosive,, and inflammable substances, packed in inadequate or unsuitable containers, involve not only waste of these commodities, but a contamination of, and serious damage to T valuable adjoining cargo, and serious hazards to property and life through possible contamination of foodstuffs, inhalation of toxic substances, corrosive burns, fire, and explosion. The development of standard codes and specifications will assist to arrest and to minimize the serious cumulative loss arising from such damage to cargo and hazards to life and property, in addition to which it will make a positive contribution towards the solution of the vexed problem of pillaging. Under the direction of a committee representative of all the interests concerned, the standard codes and specifications will be modelled on the corresponding documents issued by the British Standards Institution, and co-ordinated as far as practicable with similar documents issued by the national Standards organizations in the United States of America, Australia, and other countries. The importation and exportation of cargoes, and their transhipment, necessitates the closest possible co-ordination in thisrespect. Safe stowage, for instance, requires uniform, conspicuous marking of dangerous goods so that their nature may be readily identified, and, to be really effective, all such goods should bear the same marks, no matter where they are shipped. Hence the adoption of the standards procedure, which affords "the machinery for the co-ordinated action necessary to grapple effectively with this problem. Cost Accounting Terminology Committee (Seven meetings) This committee has continued the drafting of a standard code of cost accounting terminology, which has now been completed, subject to final review by the committee. Statistical Methods of Quality Control Advisory Panel (One meeting) This advisory panel was instituted. in view of the increasing number of standard specifications being received from overseas relating to statistical methods of quality control. These standards have demonstrated their outstanding advantages as a means of facilitating production and eliminating the waste which accrues from the production of sub-standard commodities, and their frequent rejection, because faults in the production line were not discovered until the finished goods became subject to inspection

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