WAR MARVELS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2907, 20 October 1916, Page 7

WAR MARVELS

MUNITION-MAKING IN ENGLAND

A TRAVELLER'S IMPRESSIONS,

The wonderful worK being done ill Britain in the production of munitions impresses every visitor to the Old Land in. tlieso days, and if he lias any knowledge of engineering trades his wonderment is tho . groator ' lor his | bettor appreciation of tho magnitude of the clfort. Mn J. B. Clarkson has just returned to Now Zealand, irom a visit to America, England, and France, and in an intorview with a Dominion reporter la6t night ho told of some of the tilings he had seen. First he spoke of the marvels of England's production of munitions. \

| "The faotories ire all doing wonderful work," he said. "They are altogether staffed by women and by men' unfit for military servico. The women are doing work which nobody believed before the war that they could do—attending to big lathes, drilling machines, and so on. The introduction of modern machinery has assisted to the increase ; of the output, and these machines, mosti of which were made in America, are' tended by women. The machines are specially adapted now for ; munition making, but they will be useful for ordinary manufactures after the war, and this wonderful machinery will make' England even' a greater manufacturing country than ever. Nearly' every factory in England has been increased in size,i. and hundreds tof new factories havo been built. One factory, built by the Government in the* North of England,.covers an area, of 200 acres, In Chicago, Trh6n., I was there,. I saw. a huge factory. just completed covering acres of land, and it had been built for the manufacture of munitions for the. Allies. r,.

.' '"Wages have of course gone up tremfcndouely. One'large factory I know of employing -11,000 hands paid in wages £38,000, a week during August. This covers wages paid to men, women, boys, and girls; and before the war the overage wage paid to skilled mechanics was £2 3s. or £2 4s. a week. "I was tremendously struck with the advancement in aviation in England. It is quite'safo to estimate that there are 5000 aeroplanes, British and French; on the Western'front, and tho factories are turning out hundreds a week in lflngland. .' My f only son has a oommissioii in the Plying- Qorgs, and thci school at which he was'trained turns out 38 trained pilots overy month. And therfe are dozens of 'other sohools. Travelling through England aliy day you may see scores of- aeroplanes in the air which are machines being itested, or being used by aviators in .various stages of their training. "In France I travelled . '.about' ,800 miles, but I was not allowed to get anywhere near the front. I had much better luck when I was there in 1914','for I was ablo to go all over the battlefields of the Marne, arid at Ourcq and Meaux, and I even got within sis miles of goissons, taking as many snapshots as I wished. This autumn the harvest in France has been abundant, and the Government released a certain 'number of troops to save it. - These soldiers, with women workers and 1 Algerian labour, did all the harvest work. My visit to France was exciting in i this one respect—on the v night'that we crossed the Channel three merchant: men were submarined near our course. The service 1 was held up for four days until the Admiralty could sayitbat tho danger had been removed. The ceaseless 'jwatchfulness of the Navy is fo effective'that not one regular passenger boat on any of the Channel ferries has ever been sunk. . I may mention that only one of the ferrios is used for passenger steamers, the others being reserved for military purposes, "In England, although the peoplo are agitated more or less about Zeppelins, the actual damage dono is not really so very-great. Absurdly exaggerated accounts have been circulated by the Germans, and published in some neutral countries.' I bought a paper in San Francisco on Soptember 25— certainly it was- a pro-Gorman paper— and , it', announced that there had been 30,000 casualties in the Zeppelin raids on August 3 and September 3. As*a matter of- fact there had not been 300 casualties..

' "Speaking of my own business", deliveries of motor-cars are out of the question nowi Most of- tho motor-car factories are making munitions' or aro producing'aeroplanes and aeroplane ettand also motor tractors of various kinds. We can get reasonable deliveries of motor-car accessories and of motor 'bicycles. After the war thero frill bo specialisation in tho trade, and Vo have good- leason for believing that England will be making motor-cars at much more popular pricce than in tho past. They may not be able to beat the cheapest American cars out of the market, but they will be ready to make a big bid for the colonial' markets. Motor cycles in; the samo way will he greatly reduced in price. Probably, they will come within tho rcach of everybody.: ■ ■■

_ "America, is having great difficulty in keeping her export business ■ going. Sho has eveir greater difficulty in procuring her raw materials, and the component parts, for manufacturing ' suclx articles as motor bicycles, than has the Eriglish ' manufacturer, owing to the demand for uteol for munitions, and also owing to the .fact that there is no such thing as Government control over supplies as thore is in England. Another difficulty that American manufacturers are labouring under is that instead of first and second grade steels as there were before the war, they now get only one grade, and it is about equal in quality to that formerly classed ae second grade. This makes it very, difficult for tho American manufacturer to keep his standard up. "I feel quit© sure that England will keep hor protective tariff ajtei' the war. Sho may not keep the higli .tariff she baa now, 'but I am sure she' will keep a tariff against American products for a considerable time after the declaration of peace."