Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Friday 30 March 1928
John Baker and Co.
Outlook for Coming Year Not So Bright.
The annual meeting of Messrs. John Baker and Company (Rotherham) (1920), Ltd., was held at the works, Kilnhurst, yesterday. The Chairman (Mr., J. W. Baker), moving the adoption of the report and balance sheet, referred to the investments of the company.
Some months he said, the old established business of Harrison and Camm, Rotherham, came into the market and the directors, obtained it at a reasonable price. The plant-was very useful and enabled them to increase the output of wheels and axles. He could not say at present what they would do with the plant, but even if broken up it would- clear its purchase.
Another investment of the company was the acquisition of Booth Brothers, Ltd. of Rodley. This was business that would work in well with Bakers.
The outlook for the coming year, he said, was not so bright last year, because then, owing to the coal strike, they had accumulation of orders satisfactory prices, and it was only now that the fullest effect of the coal dispute was being felt. The coal trade was in a deplorable condition, and that was reacting the waggon trade, and the iron and steel trade. The country had a tremendous amount of leeway to make up. Foreign competition was very serious.
One method of helping the iron and steel trade would be for British industrialists to find purchasers as far as possible for the products of British labour. If the million tons of iron and steel imported into the country last year had been produced by British labour the total production last year would have been at least thirteen million tons, and coal consumption would have been increased by over twelve million tons, and employment found for thousands more workmen.
Mr. G. Baker, 0.B. E. (managing director) seconded, and said that the output of the works had tremendously increased, and they were now in a better position to deal with the fluctuations of demand.
Mr. Sidney Baker retired from the Board rotation and was re-elected.