A YEAR OF BRITISH DYES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 95, 15 January 1918, Page 3

A YEAR OF BRITISH DYES

FINANCIAL RESULTS

A NATIONAL INDUSTRY

At the second annual meeting of the-1 shareholders of British Dyes, Ltd., hold on October 31 last, the chairman, in moving the adoption of the report, which liad been circulated to tho shareholders, said: Our capital subscribed, share and loan, amounts to £2,1)84,? i)fi as on April 30, 1917,; the close of the year, as compared with £1,851,514 at tho commencement of the year, being an increase of £233,221. The number of our shareholders is row 1445. As regards the financial results of the year, it is not possible to make any satisfactory estimate, and I shall therefore refrain from submitting any figures except to say that I am sure when wo are in a position to submit them they will be generally regarded as satisfactory. Our policy lias been to charge prices for our products which w< Ud enable us to build up a fund sufficient to meet the great extra cost of constructing our works during the period of the war, and with that fund to be able to write off our plant so as to reduce it to a reasonably low figure. We are satisfied that the results of the year will enable us to go a long way "in this direction—many hundreds of thousands of pounds—but Ido not want you to get any exaggerated estimate of the profit we have urado apart from the amount which is necessary to enable us to meet the depreciation which I have referred to and pay the interest and limited dividend. It will bo no object of this company to make larcre profits, because, being a_ controlled establishment, we should simply hand it over to the Exchequer, and so' no purpose would be served by our raising our prices and our profits in excess of wliat is required fairlv t<l meet the depreciation and the dividend : of 6 per cent., making together £/1,i 560

Three Departments at Work. In dealing with the work which we have carried out during the • year I would liko the shareholders to realise that we have three departments at n-oTk, all of them of enormous importance and magnitude. Tho first is to carry out certain work of national importance for the Government, the second is the supply of dyes for the immediate needs of our shareholders, and the third is the building up of a national industry for the permanent supply of dyes for this country. Our deliveries were of vital national consequence, and when you oast your thoughts back to the winter of 1915-16 and realise the extent to which the fate of our armies and our country was dependent on such supplies, I nni sure you will agree with me that Ihif is a matter of great satisfaction. I have heard from time to time tin criticism that other companies were nonfining themselves to the mauufac ture of dyes and that we ought to have done the same. That has not been our view either of our duty or of thr truest interests of the company. With regard to the immediate supply—by that I mean the supply of the immediate needs of our shareholders during tha period Hf the. war—bur output during the year has been substantially increased." The output of colours is more than three times that of the jire-war amount, and when you that we have in addition made all our intermediate and many of our raw materials to enable us to increase the output, I think you will agree that this is a very substantial effort to have accomplished. I come now to the third branch of our effort, to lay the foundation of tho establishment for tho permanent supply of dver for the country. We have during the year improved tho plant_ in operation. Other plants arc _ being pressed forward, and in estimating the amount of work involved in tho manufacture of those intermediates, we must always remember that they require for their operation general services on a veryjargc scale—steam power, gas, olectricifcy, water, compressed air, and also supplies of acids and other raw materials. To provide these requires plant on a scale which can only be properly realised by inspection, and I am to express the hope, on behalf of the board, that as many shareholders as possible will take advantage of the invitation to see the works. When you loolc at the amount of building wo have put up, then, I think, you will appreciate the effort which has been made in order to fill these buildings with plant, aud to supply them with all the services necessary to enable them to be successfully operated. All that takes time, becanso these processes involve great care, and often considerable delicacy in regard to their operation. Very little wrong will upset a chemical process, and therefore you will find, when ultimately all the plant has been put up, that a groat deal of study aud experiment) has been devoted to tlie task from first to last, until it is completely erected and working successfully.

Now, while I am bound to recognise the work which has been done, I am bound also to say in perfect frankness that it is only the beginning of the work that is to be done before have a really adequate supply of dyes manufactured in this country. In the report there is mentioned the magniture of the German concerns, with a capital of £35,000,000, and 1 dare say you all must know something of the dimensions of the German *orks. And while, of course, their output has been far in excess of what was required for Germany alo'se, still one can form some opinion of what will be required in the way of chemists, in the way of scientific work, in the way of staff, if we are going to reach our goal. I am not in the least disposed to take a despondent view, but, on tho other hand, I am not at all disposed to underestimate the task we must perform, and I think it as well that the shareholders should realise- its maguitude. The Manufacture of indigo. There are two other questions I should liko to refer to. One is tho manufacture of indigo. You remember last year i stated the steps we had taken through which we should bo in a position to manufacture indigo, and lo tender to the Government for the purchase of Ellesmere Port works, and that we were refused permission to

tender. Well, I «nid wo had made every effort to ascertain the reason, but that wo had boon unnblo to ascertain tho reason why we were not allowed to tender; wo were unable to get to know. Some doubt was attempted to bo <-ast upon the statement, and I think the question is for the user of dyes a matter of great consequence. When we were asked to submit evidence of our ability to manufacture indigo by the process at Ellesmere Port we appointed a committee consisting of Dr. Foreter, Air. Turner, Mr. Dean, and Mr. Robinson. Thoy went to Kllesmero Port and saw the plant there. Thoy then went to France, to Creil, and saw a plant similar in every respect to that at Ellesme.ro Port. They made a report, which was submitted on behalf of the board to the Board of Trade, and hero is their report: "The indigo plant at Creil is an exact duplication of the Ellesmcre Port plant. The plant was working on the occaeion of our visit, and we carefully inspected its operation at all its important stages. We also obtained from the chemists full particulars with regard to the quantities, proportions, _ temperatures, times, etc., required in the operations. We entertain no doubt as to our ability to manufacture indigo with the plant at Ellesmero Port. Further, wo have provisionally arranged with the Ministry of Commerce that if the company should acquire the plant at Ellesmere Port the services of the chemist, who is a French subject and a mobilised soldier, should be made available to assist the company in overcoming any difficulty which might present itself." We sent that to tho Board of Trade with the intimation that if there were any doubt we would bo glad to supply further particulars upon any point. The answer we got back was that after considering the reports of the two independent refereee to whom the reports from Messrs. Levenstein and ourselves had been referred they had .decided that Messrs. Levenstein, and Messrs. Levenstein alone, should be allowed to tender. We asked them again and again to state what the reason was for which we were not allowed to tender. We failed to got an answer. We asked for an interview with the president of the Board of Trade, and the whole of our board of directors attended. We repeated the question, but still without obtaining an answer. There are two things which we have pressed for. We have asked whether the. referees recommended that we should not be allowed to tender. We have got no answer to that excepting that the decision of the Board of Trade was given after considering the report; and on further pressure we were told that it was not a matter which was referable.

I want to appeal to all dye manufacturers, and everybody engaged in the Visinees—also to every men engaged in healthy rivalry—to carry on Ins business and make it a success, but do not ■d us get into the old bad position of oast days, when it was the business if every man to he trying to do as much harm to his neighbour as he possibly could. The task is one which is worthy of our beSt efforts. I asmre you that wr> are only too anxious to get the co-operation and assistance of anybody and everybody able to help for the piirposo of producing the dyes which it is our object to supply to the country.