A 200-ACRE FACTORY IN EIGHT WEEKS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 15, 19 January 1916, Page 8

A 200-ACRE FACTORY IN EIGHT WEEKS.

LORD MURRAY ON AMAZINGMUNITION RECORDS. WHAT BRITAIN IS DOING. The rapid construction and extension of factories the assembling of machines and workers, the bringing .together of the raw mafeial —all done by the Minister of Munitions within recent months —constituted a record achievement of -engineering that is unrivalled. This tribute by Lord Murray of Eiibank to the Ministry of Munitions, which he has just joined as Director of Recruiting for Munitions, is made in an.interview appearing in the New York Times.

'‘The engineering resources of Britain have been harnessed in a remarkable manner for the production of munitions of war,” says Lord Murray. “Countless workshops are busy day and night. Over a million men and women are labouring to turn out a continually increasing production of guns, shells, and other munitions of land war. In addition the enormous needs of the Navy are also receiving full attention.. Let me give a few instances: —

“In the Leeds ahe a there are now 500 workshops old and new, busy on shells and other munitions. At the outbreak of the war there was not a single munition factory. In another part of England a large? armament firm is now employing 0,000 women, and before the war they were only employing a negligible fraction of these numbers. There is a filling factory in Scotland which covers 200 acres and has eleven miles of trolley linos to take the material to the diffV rent shops, and twenty-two miles of heating pipes to warm the buildings. The erection of this vast and entirely new establishment took eight weeks. “There is one other outstanding factor which -has impressed mo vei> much, and that is the indomitable spirit and energy with which the workpeople, male and female, engaged m these works, apply themselves to their tasks. In particular the enthusiasm of the women is unbounded —from all quarters we have reports from works’ managers or the extraordinary zeal and -,er ss with which wonu'n have taken the different branches of the munition work.

“A third feature of outstanding importance is the manner in which there -has been brought together a stall of business men, comprising a large number of the ablest engineers in Britain. There are working in the Ministry of Munitions the ablest men in many or

the largest engineering establishments in Britain, giving their services without payment, to the State, and driving forward this enormously successful engineering work.’