"A LOT MORE KICK"

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 137, 6 December 1929, Page 9

"A LOT MORE KICK"

ENGLAND WAKING UP

ELECTRICAL TRADE BOOMING

'1 think Britain is much more prosperous, and has a lot more kick in her than people in New Zealand, imagine,?, declared Mr. i l. W. Barker (of Nivea and Co.), who returned to 'Wellington by the Ruahine yesterday from a sis months' business trip to the Homeland,, to a "Post" reporter to-day. "England is waking up with a vengeance; and i* absolutely—from what I saw • going round various factories—getting downto this Empire trade and export-busi-ness, changing from the old policy of 'take it; it is the only thing you-can. get,' to giving people what they ■want. The places I visited were mainly-elec-trical and engineering and motor-car works; and what they were suffering from was the difficulty of producing quickly enough. They had more orders than they could cope with at the time; and all of them were increasing their plants considerably. Their problem was rather a. production problem than, a sales problem. ■ '■ ....

"I was in London a good deal of th« : time, and also visited . Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford, Newark, and Norwich. I saw the motor-car exhibition at Olympia, and it was really a i wonderful show. The latest thing that was causing a good deal of stir when I was Home, was Lord Beaverbrook's campaign for inter-Empire free trade, which is becoming, in my opinion, a really live thing. , It is seven-, teen years since.l laßt saw the Old Country, and there have, of course, been enormous changes in the-interval. So far as unemployment ib concerned, I talked to a good many men, and in. the trades I have mentioned they were wanting skilled workers. Fitters, for instance, and skilled mechanics of that kind, are ia short supply. The bulk of the unemployed, so far. as I could seej are people who have no professions, or trades. The electrical industry,- of course, is booming along, particularlyunder the new co-ordinated, scheme of a chain of stations right through England, and the electrical • appliances manufacturers are pretty busy just now supplying material for that scheme. For example, the- British Electric Transformer Company has received the largest order that has ever been placed in the world for transformers. It amounted to 1,500,000 k.via."

The City Valuer has been authorised: to negotiate for land required- for the 'widening of Ottawa road.