WAR ON CARGO PILFERERS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1930, Page 8

WAR ON CARGO PILFERERS

M OTOR lATP R 0 VEME NTS

TROUBLES OF INDUSTRY

LONDON, September, 20

It was, I think in tbe post-war boom that the question of pilfering in cargoes became most acute, and ii good deal of effort was expended in fight ng this pest. There lias of late been a recrudescence in the number of thefts froln cargoes lying in tbe river and on the dock sides, and London merchants are to augment the protection given by the Port of London Authority and the river police. They are posting their own private watchmen every night and in some cases members of the firm have volunteered for this service and been placed on a duty rota. The Port London police are an efficient body of men numbering nearly eight hundred, whose duty is, in the words of the old statute to keep “watch and ward” over the Port of London Authority area covering 2177 acres of land, pt)6 acres of water and thirty-eight miles of quayside. Every day millions of pounds worth of valuable merchandise has to be protected, and to do this a comprehensive system of police beat is carried out. Night and day beat totalling over 170 miles are coveied. Working in conjunction with the Port of London Authority is the ffhames Division of the - Metropolitan Police, which patrols tbe • Thames from Teddington Lock to Barking. The men are equipped with launches and fast boats, and do much to prevent pilfering from moored barges. In spite of all these precautions, night raiders are getting bolder. A .few nights ago a crowd of men in a small rowing boat were seen acting suspiciously near a dockside in which were coils of copper wire. On being challenged they separated, but in a struggle later one of tbe raiders fell into the river and is believed to have been drowned.

There is more than a certain liveliness in motor circles towards impiovements, the two main developments being gearless motors and the substitution of heavy oil for tbe petrol oil engine. One of tbe latest fool-proof cars is tbe new Daimler “Double Six thirty-forty horse-power model, which does away with the gear-box and clutch, the -bugbear of the novice. There are only two major controls, accelerator pedal and foot brake. The rate of motion is controlled by a lever on the steering wheel. After the engine Inis started, this lever is moved to tbe first speed, the cars moves smoothly for ward, and for every increase of speed tbe lever is moved to second, third or top speed position, a pedal pressed on the gears change themselves with no noise, drag or shock. Alorover a start can lie made in any gear. On a hill the car will move away in top gear quite smoothly. Its control, in brief, is as simple as that of a motoicvcle. This new Daimler costs £l4io.

In all the discussions of industrial disease, one that has had least notice, but is perhaps most important, is the gap between wholesale and retail prices. It is, for instance, known that, while wholesale supplies of fruit in this country have dropped in price to at least half what they were last year, retail prices have remained practically stationary. This is due, of course, in part to the public-, which, when it gets used to paying a certain price lor a thing, goes on paying the old prices, ignorant of, or too careless to realise, that wholesale prices have fallen very greatlv. Things are beginning to move ami one imagines that had they moved a little earlier consumption, which has we hope, now reached bottom, would not have fallen so low, since, within limits, every fall in the retail price greatly enlarges the consumption demand. It is now stated that suits are to be cheaper next spring. Brices of raw wool have fallen, and with them the price of cloth. Manufacturers expect a big increase in orders for goods for next spring wear. They will then have to give orders tor yarns, and they confidently expect more spinning and weaving machinery will be in mot-ion-this autumn than in recent years.

Certain classes of men’s suitings which in the post-war boom period cost from 25s to 30-s a yard wholesale •nn now K e bought at about 10s fid a yard retail. In other words, the best tetany suit'ugs are being sold now at ,nlv about fid an ounce.