INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 290, 5 September 1942, Page 10

INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND

Shipping Achievements

“News that the largest convoy ever known has just arrived in India is worth bearing in mind," states a letter written by one of the principals of a Manchester firm of which Joseph Nathan and Company,'Limited, are the agents. “Some guess may be hazarded of how many ships were involved when one recalls that, in a recent month, British shipping carried overseas 23,000 vehicles, 1300 aircraft and 400.000 tons of stores, to say nothing of several hundred locomotives. Our ships have brought to this country an average of 3,000,000 tons a month of direct or indirect war supplies and food. Our minesweepers keep clear of mines over 14.000 miles of channel. “We regard it as an eloquent tribute to our national organization that during the past 12 months our company never experienced any serious shortage of raw material.”

The writer njentions some of the matters in which life in England has been made a little more austere. Flat racing has been zoned, and steeplechasing has been cut out altogether. All luxuries are heavily taxed. The price of a bottle of whisky or gin has risen from 12/6 before the war to 23/6 and 24/6 respectively, while a packet of 20 cigarettes now costs 2/-. Scarcely’ a firm or institution exists, states the writer, where collective purchasing of national savings certificates has not been organized. In the firm’s Manchester works, membership of these clubs is over 90 per cent, of the personnel. At the outbreak of the war the firm employed only four women. It now has over 300, an achievement of some note in a heavy industry, where opportunities for employing women are strictly limited.