REPLACING GERMAN GOODS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1977, 15 May 1919, Page 4

REPLACING GERMAN GOODS.

One of the directions in which British industry is ready to replace German goods is in the manufacture of magnetos. This industry has settled almost entirely in Birmingham, Coventry, and Rugby. In each of those towns there are factories with special installations of machinery which make and put together most of the parts of which a magneto consists. Many other manufacturers are also engaged in preliminary processes or in the production of details. Such specialised items as the ball hearings are obtained from firms who devote themselves primarily to that manufacture. The combined output of all the British linns is estimated at about 30,000 a month, as compared with 100 before the Avar. Present production, it is expected, will he doubled in the near future, for the industry is groAviug very rapidly. Now they have a thorough, grasp of the business, British magneto manufacturers will not be content Avith the home market merely; they AvilPexpect to develop an export trade. What a production of 30,000 British, magnetos a month means may bo seen from the fact that the pre-war output of the German magneto, Avhich was known the world over, Avas about 2-1,000 a mouth. So pervasive was this particular type that British engineering practice avus adapted to it, and to such an extent that arrangements noAV have to be made Avlierehy English models Avill tit in the place of the German. Leading British linns are uniting in an endeavour to advance the industry. To this cud they have arranged among themselves for each to lake up certain sizes, thus securing bulk production and eliminating competition.