GLASS TRADE’S PLIGHT

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1926, Page 4

GLASS TRADE’S PLIGHT

SAFEGUARDING REQUEST REFUSED. LONDON, Dec! 19. The application of tlie domestic, illuminating, pressed, and bulb sections of the glass trade for inclusion under the Safeguarding of Industries Act has been rejected, but it is understood that the Board of Trade contemplates early m the New Year, a measure to meet the position of those industries which cannot be included under the present Act. In the seven sections of the glass trade only one, the optical section, enjoys any measure of protection, al-

though unemployment in the other sections ranges from 63 per cent, in the domestic to 70 per cent, in tlve plate and window glass sections. In an interview with a reporter, Mr

William Bradford, the Financial Secretary, of the National Flint Glass .Makers’ Society, said: “It is the trade unions in the industry which have forced the attention of the Government to the present position, and we are all disheartened at our lack of success. There are 5.000 key men in the glass Hade and each of these finds work for six or seven others. “The dumping of foreign glass is mining the industry, and at the present time glass is being imported into this country to lie cut by our workmen and then sold as English cutglass. The manufacturers have done all they can to make the present glass industry, and millions of pounds have been sunk.” He mentioned the case of the British Glass Tndutruxs, Ltd., which has a capital of £4,500,000 and tho £1 shares of which were quoted on tin Stock Exchange last week at 9d and 9Jd.