BUSINESS BRAINS.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 August 1917, Page 1

BUSINESS BRAINS.

MEN WHO ARE- WINNING

THE WAR

(Daily Mail, June 1.)

Mr Bonar Raw astonished people just before the recess by his statements as to the number of business men now assisting the Government. He claimed for the Ministry of Munitions, for instance, that it comprised a body ot business men more competent, I believe, than is to be found in any industrial undertaking in this country.” The Clothing Department of the War Office has now assisting it “ something like ioo men who were in business before,” he said further. And again, “The War Office have had helping them, and have helping them to-day, men who couid not be bought by any salary the House.of Commons could possibly give them. Take, for instance, Lord Rotlier. mere in the Clothing Department, or Mr Weir, who has undertaken the position of General Supervisor ol Contracts.”

Only one or two names were mentioned by Mr Bonar Law, but the business-men of Push and Go either in the-Government or working in Government departments have grown to be so numerous that a bare list, of then! would fill a column. They are a great company! One reads the names of men who have greatly dared and won through while working for themselves in industrial undertakings and commercial enterprises of a magnitude from which many shrank appalled. Now they are daring and doing for England. They have bridged and tunnelled, bored and built from China to Peru ; created great railway systems ; founded great busi_ nesses; controlled great combines . and all their consummate skill, knowledge and energy is now directed upon the machine of State, and is getting from it an output and an efficienc}' which is staggering to those aecpiainted with the old, slow, slack, easy-going methods'. Some of them were already familiar to the public before they took office ; others were known as names; not a few were quite mi-’' known outside their particular business circles. How many people, for instance, know anything of Mr Andrew Weir, the canny Scot from the “ lang toon of Kirkcaldy,” who is now Surveyor General of Supply at the War Office? He is the head of a firm of Glasgow shipowners. They know him on the Clyde, of course, but even there they do not know much regarding his personality; yet now he is a member of the Army Council, and by his shrewd business methods is helping to save the country £1,000,000 a week, it is reported.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has at his right hand/ as 'Financial Secretary of the Treasury, Sir Samuel Hardman Fever. To the consternation of politicians, he is not an M.P.—there was a debate about it in the House of Commons

the other night—but he is a firstclass business man, and his earlier work at the Ministry of Munitions saved this country “ many millions of pounds,” as Mr Montagu himself testified. Before the war Mr Fever -he was*not knighted then—was the principal of the biggest linn of accountants in the United States, but being English by bir'ii became home to “ do his bit.”

All shipping is now controlled by Sir Joseph Maclay. “You have called me in six months too late, but I will do liiy best,” he is reported to have said when taking office; and he is dealing brilliantly with a complex and difficult situation. He was a man to be reckoned with on the Clyde—“ What will Maclay do, though ? ” his business competitors always asked them selves—but- beyond the bounds of Glasgow he was not well known. He is often mistaken for Ford Morley. Sir Eric Geddes, who after transforming our railway transport service in France has now gone to be ■Controller of the Admiralty, has had an interesting career. He has been a lumberman in the Southern States of America; operated the Baltimore and Ohio Railway ; run railways in India ; and was assistaiij. general manager of the NorthEastern Railway till the outbreak of war.

The head of the Air Board is Lord Cowdrav. The fame of S. Pearson and Son, the great contracting firm, is world-wide, and Ford Cowdray is its president. He has personally directed the many matvellous engineering feats which it has carried through in Mexico, in Canada, and in this country. The Inventions Department of the Ministry of Munitions is undertlie control of Sir Ernest William Moir, who is a partner In the Pearson firm. His record 6f achievements includes these “ incidents ” : Was in charge of the southern cantilever of thfe

Forth Bridge ;• was resident engineer of the Hudson River Tunnel, New York; helped in the construction of the Blackwall Tunnel, the Great Northern and City Railway, and the Admiralty Harbour, Dover*

Lord Rhonclda, the President of the Local Government Board, is an emperor of commerce. For some years he sat iu Parliament, but Westminster disappointed him. Quitting'”politics,- he applied his restless activity and business genius to wider conquests in the realms of commerce, and when at the call of the country he took'his present post he was the head of a great colliery alliance employing between 25,000 and 30,000 men, and a director of 40 companies. He rendered valuable service to the country on a business mission to the United States iu the spring of 1915. - He is a survivor of the Lusitania !

The new-President of the Board of Trade, Sir Albert Stanley, is believed to have paid one shy visit to the House of Commons since lie was elected M.P. He brings American business training and experience to our trade problems, having been foi twelve years the manager of electric railways in America before he came back to this country—he was born in Derby—to become managing director of the Metropolitan District, the Central Railway, London, and other transit companies.

Lord Rothermere, to whose work as Director of the Army ClothingDepartment Mr Bonar Lnw paid so glowing a tribute, is a man of great business capacity. He is president and principal founder ol the AugloNewfouudland Development Company, which is bringing prosperity to our oldest Colony, and more recently as a relaxation, he founded the “Sunday Pictorial,” which has a net sale of over 2,000,000 copies weekly. For many years, until he and Lord Northcliffe retired from the Amalgamated Press, he was joint director of this business, the largest publishing company in the world.

Mr Kennedy Jones, M.P., the Director of the Food Economy campaign, is another man who made his fortune in newspaper • enterprise. His strenuous effort largely helped in the early days of the London “ Evening News ” and “ The Daily Mail.” Later he devoted his business experience to a reconstruction of Waring and Gillows. Sir Alfred MOll d, the First Commissioner. .of Works, who commandeers hotels, tills the parks, or erects Government offices as though by the wave of a magic wand, made a million as a chemical manufacturer, and his firm have the reputation of being most enlightened iu their dealings with their workmen. This record does not pretend to be a complete survey of all the men from manj' businesses now directing the Great Business ol State; but of itself it is a famous list. The old motto “ Trade follows the Flag ” is amended in this crisis. Trade directs the Flag.