THE ARSENAL OF FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1915, Page 8

THE ARSENAL OF FRANCE.

CREUSOT RIVALS KRUPP. A well-informed correspondent from Le Creusot (Burgundy) thus describes the famous Schneider works: "Schneider of Creusot, and Creusot of the Schneiders; the names are known all over the world, most particularly by the locomotives of the French type which they have perfected, and by the arms and munitions with which they have supplied every nation except the three or four that have reached an equally advanced stage of development. Like ivrupps of Essen, Vickers of Sheffield, or Armstrongs of Newcastle, it .was till a year ago an international business of immense dimensions, and is now very strictly national and at the highest power of expansion. Like the others, it was divided between peaceful and warlike manufactures; now it is almost wholly given over to the latter. Creusot is to-day only the chief of a scries of ten or more kindred establishments owned by the same private company. They employ a large number of engineers and workmen of various degrees of skill, not to count a network of dependent or connected businesses; and the provision of the defensive material of France in the present war is largely dependent upon them. The dispersion of the Schneider establishments over France, 011 the other hand, has been actuated by the exhaustion of coal and iron measures 111 the Creusot region and the advantage of being near the large seaports. To pass first, as I have done, through a number of lesser French arms and munitions factories gives one a very clear idea of the excellence of the Creusot organisation, equipment, and resources.