TRADE REVIVAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5074, 12 January 1927, Page 1

TRADE REVIVAL.

WABNJNG BY Mil J. BARR.

RECOVERY IN SHIPBUILDING.

A farther warning against 'false optimism in regard to the immediate future, of British trade and industry is made by Mr J. Barr, of Messrs. Vickers, Ltd., Barrow-in-Furness, and president of the Shipbuilding Employers’ Federation. He. points, out that so 'far as shipbuilding is concerned it would be too much to hope that recovery could be anything but very gradual.

Mr Barr said: “It is true that within the last few weeks a number of shipbuilding contracts have been placed. The anticipation of the end of th© coal dispute and the greater stability, which has been secured within the shipbuilding industry as a result of co-operation between employers and trade union organisations have encouraged the placing and taking o'f work which otherwise could not have been contemplated. “But to describe contract® that have been placed as, constituting a boom or even a big revival, would be absurd. So far as shipbuilding is concerned Ave hope that wa hav® at long last reached a period of improvement, but from any indications 1 by which one. can judge it, would be too much to hope that recovery can be anything but very gradual. ARREARS OF WORK

“Some of the work that has been placed, is, in fact, only arrears; from the period of great unsettlement which has prevailed during, the last six months. During that period, shipbuilding, like many other industries, lias been starved for work. For the quarter ending September last, for example, only 68,000 tons of new shipping was begun, this being approximately one-third of the tonnage commenced 'during the: corresponding quarter of 1925, both of these quarters themselves being very low. “Even takng the work being commenced this quarter, although much better than the previous quarter, it will still leave the industry with considerably less than half its facilities occupied.

“While work now being placed is therefore a matter for gratification within the industry it would be quite wrong to raise false hopes as to the. extent of it, or even as to the immediate benefit to be derived from it; and I feel it is most undesirable that false hopes of immediate employment shoud be encouraged, with the inevitable disappointment to the workers.

“Lt is because statements recently printed have tended .to exaggerate the actual facts, that I have thought it necessary to express this warning. ’