THE KRUPP STEEL WORKS OF TO-DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 69, 17 April 1909, Page 3

THE KRUPP STEEL WORKS OF TO-DAY.

Among the industrial establishments of the present day the Krupp I works are undoubtedly the largest and most important, as may be judged from I the fact that at the begiuning of the /present year, in the Essen works, and in Hie other large concerns which are | identified with the name of Krupp and operated under a common control, there were employed, counting ollicials iuid iworknun, 05,000 men; while 33,000 men wciu employed in the Essen works aionu. Til-; town of Essen (says the Scientific American) lie* within a few miles of the Rhine in fertile undulating country, and surrounded by the most important coalmines in tlerniany. Conspicuous among the buildings of the town is a stately modern building, the Town Hall, which | by its imposing size and elaborate archi-1 tecture affords the first suggestion that' the city which it graces lias a popula-1 tion of nearly 100,000 souls. i u the square before the Town Hall is a noble bronze monument representing a man clad in a simple citizen's coat, whose right hand rests on an anvil, and whose penetrating eyes are overhung bv the Heavy brow of a thinker. Th> inscription records that the monument has been raised to Alfred Krupp, a man who within the time of half a generation raised a small and comparatively unknown country town to a position of importance and celebrity. That the works have continued to increase ia spite of the severe loss sustained by the death of their founder is shown by the figures giving the number of people employed in all the Krupp works, counting both officials and workmen. In 1902 there were employed in all the Krupp works 45,000 men, and in the Essen works' alone 25,000 men. In October, 1005, only three years later, 02,000 men were employed in all the works, and 33,000 at Essen, and tliese figures, as we have already shown, tod risen by January, 1007, respectively to 05,000 and 35,000. The actual ratio of growth is larger than appears from the figures, because of the great increase in the use of laborsaving devices between the years 1002 and 1007. That is to say, the rate of growth of output must necessarily have been larger than the rate of growth of employees. v On Ist April, 1002, the shipbuilding yard "Germaniawerft" at Caarden, near Kiel, and the engineering works at Tegel, near Berlin, passed into the posI session of Fried. Krupp, who had already in 1800 taken over by contract the- management of the works for a period of 25 years. In order to raise the Germaniawerft to the maximum of its productive capability and to make it equal to modern requirements, the firm decided to recast the works from the t very foundations, and also to transfer to Kiel the Tegel works, which thus [ were amalgamated with the new establishments at the Germaniawerft.' The ' grounds at the disposal of the Gennania- ! werft at the time of the above-men-tioned contract covered an area of 138,710 square metres; this area was raised to 236,000 square metres, upon which the erection of the new and extensive buildings was carried out and completed during the years 1808-1002. 'Perhaps the Krupp works is best known for its production of high-class ordnance, which for several decades it has manufactured in large quantities and with uniform excellence. There are ten large workshops alone for machining and finishing guns and breech mechanisms. They have an aggregate ftoorvspace of 5 V&fUsres. ami they contain altogether about 700 machine tools. The vast scale on which the Krupp works have been laid out is shown by the following statistics of the working plant as installed in the sixty-odd departments:—There arc about 0500 sundry machine tools and other workshop machines; 21 trains of rolls; 155 steam hammers; 21 transmission hammers; 14 hydraulic presses, including 2 bending presses of 7000 tons pressure and 2 forging presses of 5000 and 2000 tons pressure respectively; 300 stationary steam boilers; 74 locomotive steam boilers; 539 steam, engines of from 2 to 3500 horeespower and aggregating 50,050 horse-power; 1301 ele'etro-motors, aggregating over 20.000 horse-power: and 725 cranes of from 400 to 150,000 kilogrammes lifting capacity.