BEATING THE WORLD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 12 January 1931, Page 7

BEATING THE WORLD

BRITISH ELECTRICAL TRADE ROMANCE IN REAL FACTS £100,000,000 OUTPUT A manufacturing output of over £100,000,000. Every great factory working full-time and with 100 per cent, energy. Technical development five years ahead of any other country. Higher exports than any other competitive nation. Those are facts which will be written at Hie end of the current year on twelve months’ trading of the British electrical industries, states an article in the London. “Daily Express.” This group of industries, employing 250,000 workers, is at the present time the most prosperous, and, in many ways (he most progressive of all the great trades of this country. It has beaten the wide world during a time of home depression and difficulty. The story that can bo told of the British electrical manufacturers in this troublous year of 1930 is a real romance, and provides a lesson which should he taken as an example by all other exporting industries. Exports of electrical goods and appliances were the only manufactures of the United Kingdom that in September showed an incroasc. This progress is being maintained, and by the end of the year Britain will hold a proud position as the chief exporting country of electrical machinery and apparatus. CHIEF COMPETITORS The electrical exports of the United States and of Germany—the two chief competitors—at the close of December are likely to he: — United States.—Ten per cent less exports than in 1929, or a decrease of £2,500,000. Germany.—Five per cent, below 1929, or a decrease of £1,250,000. Unemployment in the electrical trades of the United States stands at 25 per cent., and nearly half the American firms who made reports on unemployment were working only part-time.. In Germany the trade unemployment is 30 per cent. Here in England all the firms are at full pressure of production. Orders from overseas Have been captured by English firms in the face of enormous difficulties. Our manufacturers are selling on the Continent and beating the Germans on their own doorstep. A large contract for Copenhagen was secured recently by a British firm against every possible influence from Germany One Newcastle factory, with a yearly turnover of more than £2,000,000, making switchgear, has secured exceptionally good custom in the United. States against American houses, competing behind the protective barrier of high tariffs. WORLD MONOPOLY Another firm at Brighton, with a similar turnover, has sold the greater part of its production to Franco and Belgium. Those are two casual examples of what is being done abroad. They could he duplicated a hundred, times. “JVe are winning practically a world 4 monopoly in certain kinds of electrical gear,” said a representative of • the British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers’ Association to a “Daily Express” representative. “With heavy machinery we are doing a greater proportion of world business than evor before in the history of the industry. ‘This is due to competitive, value. The value of electrical goods made in this country is far higher than the manufacturers of any other country. It is safe to say that we are five, years ahead of our competitors in technical development. . “In Germany wage costs have been reduced by more than 80 per cent., and yet still the Germans cannot beat us, even on the Continent. ,“We do not need to reduce wages. It is not necessary. We have saved costs on scientific and technical development.”