DRIVE TO SHOW WORKERS THEIR PART IN PRODUCTION A NEW drive
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to encourage manage.ment to show workers how their individual efforts fit into the background of company policy, has been initiated by Sir Stafford Cripps. He expressed the conviction, last week, that by the application of intelligent ideas and the release of spontaneous energies, production could be increased with existing plant and labour.
Managing directors of about 12,001) concerns are to receive copies of a new monthly publication entitled "Target." Its purpose is to show business executives what is already being done in industry to stimulate the interest of employees in their work. The first issue is brightly produced in colour and contains some extremely useful ideas.
Conferences in the regions are also to be held under the auspices of the Regional Boards for Industry. The existing Government service of economic information to factories is to be extended by the preparation of further visual material.
SCHOOL "WAITERS" WANTED
HAULIERS are being invited by the North-East Essex Divisional Executive of Essex Education Committee to submit tenders for the conveyance of meals in containers from central kitchens to school canteens throughout North-East Essex. Brightlingsea, Clacton-on-Sea, Colchester, Frinton and Walton, Halstead, Harwich. Leaden and Winstree, Tendring, West Mersea and Wivenhoe are included in the scheme.
Full details are obtainable from the divisional education officer, Park Road, Colchester, Essex.
NIMBLE FINGERS SOME of the highly skilled work done in the engineering and other industries by blind people is described and illustrated in a booklet which has been issued by the National Institute for the Blind, 224-228, Great Portland Street, London, W.1. Lam:cease Safety Glass Or-eland). Ltd.. math :. rt,:t profit of X5,721 las: sear A halani:c -.f IP is carried forward.
minimax, Ltd. made a het moth of 1:75.tifi,i1 sear. A final dictdend of 12 pet he paid, making 20 per cent.. Plus a fr.. Per cent. bonus, tot the year.
Spurling Motor Bodies. Ltd., worked at a rel. P/0111. 01 £130.570 in the period to Fcbrita:-y tast. Consolidated net profit was r.:137,65. sum of I:20.000 has bhen placed to contingencies reserve.
Stream-Line Fitters, Ltd., static a profit of i'23.b48 in the past year. Taxation absorbed ....9.000. A final dividend of 7., per cent. is to he paid. making 12', per cent. for the i.ear. A ha latter of £21,663 is carried forward,
TiBine-Stevens, Ltd., last year made a net profit of £764211, A sum of 15,0110 has tern allocated to general reserve and 1.211.000 la a reserve against a possible fall in the value of material. Ordinary shareholders will l'recite it dividend of 5 per cent, for the year.
Ronne Industries, Ltd., reports a Profit, in the Period to September 30 last, of £16,225. Tanti'on accounted for i:8,300. A dividend of 7 per cent, and a bonus of 2t per per cent, me to he paid, rnaldn$ 10 per cent. for the year, General T'OSerl.(! receives C,000 and i1.501 is carried forward.
Crosville Motor Services, lid., announces that in the year to March di last, its profit. afict providing for depreciation. taxation and other charges. was £395.193, A final dividend of .1 per cent. is to be paid. making 8 Per cent.. less tax. for the year. plus a snecial bonus of .5 per cent,. tax tree. Oeneral reserve recce,cs 15(,1511) and f.216,722 is carried forward.
North Western Road Car Co.. Ltd., records an income in the year ended March 31 last of 1'1.726.399. Fuel tasaz:On and licences cos: f104,593, taxation 5193.079, and operating and matmenanee expenses £1.030.423. Net profit was .002,857. A final dividend of 10 per cent. is to be paid. making 20 per cent., tax free. for thc .,.ear. General reserve receives ,fl25.907. and ha,anee of 1:50.563 is carried forward
CONFERENCE OF PARCELS CARRIERS
ACON FE R EWE of express carriers arranged by the Express Carriers' Group of the Road Haulage Association will be held in Manchester on June 29. It will begin as an ordinary meeting of the group national committee, in order to give express carriers an opportunity of seeing how the committee works. In addition, there will he a discussion on the effect of the Transport Act on express carriers,
Talks will be given by Mr. J. B. Green on combating thefts and pilfering, and by Mr. E. Burton on the problems caused by the repacking of damaged parcels.
At the end of the meeting the committee will answer questions. It is suggested that, as far as possible, questions should be sent in advance to the group secretary, Mr. Ralph Cropper, at 146, New Bond Street, London, W.I.
I.M.I. TO ENCOURAGE YOUTH AN associate class of non-corporate members, and a fellowship examination which will allow ambitious younger members of the industry to qualify for the highest grade in the Institute on their abilities in the technical or managerial field, are to be introduced by the Institute of the Motor Industry.
Graduate and student sections will be set up as quickly as possible in all regions where there is a minimum of 30 graduates or students.
Yorkshire branches of the Institute have elected officers as follows:—Yorkshire region: Chairman, Mr. C. F. l.a\\ rence King; deputy-chairman, Mr. P. R. Baugh; honorary secretary, Mr. 1' 17)11k Lockwood.
Scarborough centre: Chairman, Mr. W. Hunter; deputy-chairman, Mr. F. tidsow honorary secretary, Mr. F. C. Boreham.
Hull centre; Chairman. Mr. Baden Powell; deputy-chairman, Mr. Kenneth Tarran; honorary secretary, Mr. J. G. llartenfield.
Sheffield centre: Chairman, Mr. Charles Frith; deputy-chairman. Mr. P. R. Baugh; honorary secretary, Mr. F. J. Hall.
Mr. T. I. Bennett and Mr. C. R. Crane are to represent Yorkshire on the 1.M.1. council.
NEW " TRADER " HANDBOOK THE 42nd edition of The Trader Handbook" has been published by the Trader Publishing Co., Ltd., at 12s. 6d. It contains 412 pages and is divided into the following main sections:---Technical information; directory of manufacturers and wholesalers; classified buyers' guide: garage equipment: proprietary names directory: legal guide and licensing. It is a work of the utmost value to all concerned in the buying of supplies.
OBITUARY
WF. regret to report, the death, after a short illness, of MK. R. C. YttxrEs. sales director of W. S. Yeates. Ltd.. Loughborough. He was 43 years of age, and joined the company, which huilds bodies and carries on an engiTiLering business, in 1944. INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY TO SOLVE DOCK PROBLEMS?
AFTER hearing a report by its transport committee on the seriousness of delays to road vehicles waiting to unload at the docks, Birkenhead Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution requesting the Ministry of Transport to set up an independent authority, with power to act, to go into the question of the daily queues and to devise remedies.
Mr. E Wraymer Willmer, who presided, suggested that the effect of the suggested resolution would be to set up a local Gestapo on the Birkenhead and Liverpool docks.
Mr. E. Hopkins, sponsor of the resolution, said that one of the main reasons for queues was that there was less berthing space and ships now usually sailed with full cargoes, instead of calling at other ports as they did before the war. It was easy to criticize, but difficult to find a solution, and the working party agreed that there was no sovereign remedy. The transport committee felt that if an independent body were set up to work on the spot, and given power to act, it would find some solution.
SPECIAL TEST FOR COMMERCIAL PETROL ASPECIAL test for detecting the presence of diphenylamine in commercial petrol has been announced by the .Ministry of Fuel and Power. Under the Motor Spirit (Regulation) Act, 1948, commercial spirit is defined as fuel containing diphenylamine, and it is not an offence to have in the tank of a private car petrol containing red dye alone.
A second chemical has been added to commercial petrol to enable the
police to decide whether any given sample is of the commercial variety or not. Public analysts have been instructed to adopt the following tests:—
Shake 20 mls. of petrol sample with 10 mls. of 2N NaOH for 1 minute: run off the aqueous layer, and repeat with a further 10 mls. of 2N NaOH. After running off the alkali, wash the petrol with 10 rills. of water, The washed A30 petrol is shaken with 2 mls. of 0.1 per cent. ammonium vanadate in 70 per cent. HC1. The presence of diphenylamine is indicated by the appearance of a blue colour in the aqueous layer.
TIMING CHAINS STOLEN A T Birmingham Stipendiary Magis
trate's Court, last week, an employee of the Perry Chain Co., Ltd., Tyseley, Birmingham, who stole timing chains, was fined £10, and a factor was sentenced to three months' hard labour for receiving them.
The factor admitted buying the chains at 7s. 6d. each and selling them to cus tomers at 25s. each. Their value was 37s. 6d. each and the total value of those stolen was £56 5s.
AGAINST 30 M.P.H. LIMIT QEVENTY-THREE local authorities or road safety committees have sent protests to the Minister of Transport against the proposal to increase the heavy-vehicle speed limit. " M. OF T. SHOULD NOT CONTROL ROADS" "CENTRALIZATION of power in the Ministry of Transport, controlled by the Treasury, will not give the country the road system it needs," said Mr. Rees Jeffreys, chairman of the Roads Improvement Association, at the 61st annual general meeting, last week. "The interest and initiative of local highway authorities have been destroyed or sapped, and no driving power at the centre has been set up to take the initiative. Everything finally is controlled by the Treasury," he said.
The railways, more than any other single group, had opposed the building of new roads. By nationalization, the financial interests behind the railways had been bought out, and the City was no longer directly concerned in keeping the railways artificially prosperous, at the expense of road transport.
In many countries where the railways had been nationalized, the State opposed the development of roads and road traffic, and limited their use. Mr. Rees Jeffreys quoted the effects on road development of railway State ownership in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and the East African Colonies.
By contrast, in the United States, where the privately owned railways were not able to interfere with the development of the highways, there had been economic development of both road and rail, and a great increase in transport efficiency.
If Great Britain were to remain a great Power, he said, the problem of reducing transport costs must be solved. At the moment public opinion was indifferent to the importance of road transport in this connection, but the time might well come when its importance in the solution of the problem of production costs would be recognized.
Latest Commer models were shown at the Canadian International Trade Fair, which opened at Toronto on May 28.
CHEAPER CURRENT FOR BATTERY CHARGING?
1 ORD CITRINE, chairman of the 1...■ British Electricity Authority, speaking at the annual luncheon of the Electric Vehicle Association of Great Britain, in London last week, foresaw a possibility that the cost of electricity used at night for charging the batteries of electric vehicles might be reduced to encourage the spreading-over of the electrical load. He said that no doubt the Area Boards would examine methods of encouraging the use of electrics, and each Board might eventually have its own fleet of such vehicles. Manufacturers would, however, have to initiate any development on these lines.
He referred to the precarious oil situation and said that unless this country could exploit its own resources and its ingenuity, its standard of life would be depressed for many years.
After pointing out that last year there were 10,000 battery-electrics in use in this country, compared with 5,000 before the war, Lord Citrine said that output would have been higher had the materials been available. Even so, production so far this year was 65 per cent. higher than that of last year. There was believed to be a potential market for about 75,000 battery-electric vehicles in the United Kingdom.
Mr, Peter Rochs, a member of the executive committee of E.V.A., estimated that electric-vehicle users consumed 80,000,000 units of electricity and paid 1250,000 a year to the B.E.A. Assuming that each battery-electric covered an average of 200 miles a week on local work, 9,500,000 gallons of petrol, costing 1,330,000 dollars, were being saved each year, compared with the use of 10,000 petrol vehicles.
Mr. R. Birt, of E.V.A., suggested that to ensure the necessary high standard of mechanical attention, electric vehicles might be hired by the Area Electricity Boards to operators.
HEAVY PROGRAMME FOR
CLEANSING CONFERENCE THE Institute of Public Cleansing
opens its Jubilee Conference at Margate next Monday, and five important papers will be read during the week. Demonstrations of vehicles and appliances will also be given.
This year a memorandum on the training of public cleansing officers has been published, and regulations now require all candidates for examination to have had a full training in mechanical engineering, such as that attested by possession Of the Higher National Certificate.
Papers to be read during the conference include; "Human Engineering," by B. Misselbrook, director of social and industrial psychology, Edinburgh University; "A Layman Looks at Public Cleansing," by D. Kaberry, deputy chairman, Leeds Cleansing Committee; "Snow Clearance," by J. H. Cowan, deputy director of public cleansing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; " Problems and Methods of Refuse Collection," by J. Porton, cleansing superintendent, Reigate; and "Refuse Disposal: Present-day Problems," by Colin Clegg, director of public cleansing, Southend-on-Sea.
On Wednesday there will be an " open forum," at which any delegate may speak for two minutes, on any subject within the scope of the conference. On June 17 will be held an inspection of public-cleansing vehicles. and. later in the day. a demonstration. 1 he conference closes on Friday.
JET STANDARD REVISED
QRIG IN ALLY prepared to cover carburetter jets for aircraft and automobile engines, British Standard N. 720 : 1948 has been revised to applv to jets for all types of engine. The maximum fuel flow that can be dealt with under this standard has been raised from 2.000 to 1.5,000 ml. per minute. The standard defines the basis of calibrating standard reference jets and method of calibrating carburetter jets.
Since Manchester Corporation gave orders, more than two years ago. for 423 new bus chassis and 264 bodies, the price has increased by over .09.570.
VEHICLE BUILDERS' WAGES TALKS ADJOURNED
A CONFERENCE held at York. last PI week, to discuss an amended proposal by the vehicle builders' trade unions, was adjourned until June 29 to allow members of the employers' joint wages board to consult their respective organizations.
As reported in The Commercial Motor." last week, the new proposal is for an increase in wages of 3d. per hr.. with the proviso that where piece prices, or rates in lieu, permit men of average ability to earn 271,; per cent. more than the scheduled rates, there should be no alteration.
Last week's conference was attended by representatives of the National Union of Vehicle Builders, the Amalgamated Society of Woodcutting Machinists, the National Employers' Association of Vehicle Builders, the National Federation of Vehicle Trades, and the Scottish National Association of Vehicle Builders.