EMPIRE TRADE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2420, 27 March 1915, Page 20

EMPIRE TRADE

LESSONS FOR BRITISH MANUFACTURERS \ A PRACTICAL EXHIBITION Every manufacturer.and man of commerce, • every man who is .interested-in the great effort which is . being made; to capture the. enemy's trade, says the London "Times" of January 21, would do well to visit tlie Imperial Institute, lor-the past 15 years the directors.of this institution have worked together with the single object of making'the Empire self-contained, and the present war has created the opportunity of surveying what has been done in this direction. -

Whoever visits- the Imperial Institute will find the British Empire, its products,/ peoples, industries, and resources docketed for his . inspection.. Here are models, _of the ports from which the goods, if he will, purchase them, are shipped home; samples of timber that he may handle and inquire into. Moreover, the raw materials of, for example, Canada are shown, first, as -such, and then in all the stages of the various articles for the manufacture of which they are used. Asbestos may be seen as itself and as wallpaper; the seal, in a reconstructed setting of its native haunts, and as a coat.. Everything is displayed in such a way that the beholder may grasp at once its various commercial possibilities. The samples and exhibits are continually being added to and,revised.

Tlie Imperial Institute also includes a department which examines and- tests the; commercial value of new or little known' colonial or Indian products, and another which collects and supplies technical and, other essential information to British. manufacturers, "who' desire to find new or increased supplies of raw materials. . x New British Imports. Before the war enormous, quantities of raw material of all kinds' were shipped'. from. British colonies or India to Germany, worked up in German factories, and often resold, largely, in -the form of the-manufactured article, to Great-Britain.': The policy of the. Imperial Institute is to _ endeavour t<j direct this mass of colonial and Indian raw material, as far'as possible, to ■ tlie manufacturers in this country,, and at. the same time-to encourage the use of British machinery; in the colonies and India.

The Institute has already been able to put many British manufacturers in the way of adding largely to their trade. For instance, _ among the raw materials froni the British colonies or . India, which before the war wore sent principally or entirely to Germany, are copra from our Eastern possessions, and palm kernels from West Africa (for margarine and other edible fats, soap, and candles and feeding stuffs for live stock) wattlebark from South and East Africa (for tanning), and a- variety of vegetable products used as drugs. These colonial or Indian. products are now, thanks to the work of the Imperial Institute, coming to this country, for manufacture, in some cases for.: the first time, in other cases in largely'increased, quantities. A case in point is tho import into Hull last week of 1600 tons of palm .kernels and 3000 barrels of palm oil, products which are quite new to that port. . The attention of homo manufacturers is now being called to a variety 'of other colonial products, which can bo utilised in factories hero, such as ground nuts from West Africa." and India (for oils and soaps), molybdenito from Australia (for hardening steel), hides and skins from the Sudan (for leather), and. myrabolans from - India (for tanning). The Information Bureau. ' At the moment over. 100 different inquiries from the United Kingdom,, tho colonies, and India are heing handled by the' Technical Information Bureau of tho Institute every week.:. A typical day's correspondence last ; weeli dealt among other subjects with rubber, gums hardwoods, oranges, and lemons, various sorts of fibres, substitutes for German disinfectants, graphite, white pigments, goat skins, cassava chips, ujojvan seeds, breeds of horses fori Abyssinia, machinery for the - manufacture of mix vomica extract, and the use ol' tho feathers of the Indian jungle i'owl for the manufacture of artificial ilies for' fishing. The ; representative'.of;-'the "Times" who visited the Imperial. Institute on Wednesday was told that what it needs first is more money, secondly, the entire use of the building which was. specially crected for Imperial purposes, now at last l.ieiug realised, but in which tbo offices ol the London Univcrtiity _aro aku at present temporarily houscu.