Home Industry and Commerce Other Industry Kilnhurst Industrialist’s Views – Impressions and Comparisons of American Tour

Kilnhurst Industrialist’s Views – Impressions and Comparisons of American Tour

June 1939

Mexborough & Swinton Times, June 30, 1939

Heavy Industries Not Doing Well

Impressions and Comparisons of American Tour

Kilnhurst Industrialist’s Views

“We came home with warm feelings of gratitude for the friendliness we met wherever we went in America, and for the eagerness with which they helped us to understand American commerce and industry.” In this way Mr. Sydney Baker, a director of Messrs. Baker and Bessemer, Ltd., Kilnhurst, summed up to a representative of this paper his impressions of a month’s business visit to America and Canada.

Other members of the party were Mr. and Mrs. George Baker, Miss M. Baker, Mrs. Sydney Baker, and Mr. A. R. Habershon (Messrs. J. J. Habershon and Sons), and Mrs. Habershon. Our readers had an opportunity in our last issue to study Mrs. George Baker’s informative account of the complete journey, and this week Mr. Sydney Baker has given us some interesting data on the American engineering industry.

In U.S.A. And Canada.

The party sailed from England on May 10th, and docked at New York on the 16th. Among the places they visited were Pittsburg, Chicago, Buffalo, Niagara, Toronto, Ottawa. Montreal, and Quebec. They sailed from Quebec to New York, and left America on June 14th.

Mr. Baker said they found the American engineering industry working to half capacity. The party were given full opportunity to study their methods, and one of the most important differences between English ideas and theirs is the fact that they have two or three units where there is only one here. They carry the typical American love of the grand-scale into industry, and it was no rare thing to see plant five times the size of the Templeborough works of Messrs. Steel, Peech and Tozer.

Modern appliances are used throughout, and wherever possible there is instrument control. Their actual methods of steel-making are similar to ours; but they use a great amount of oil fuel and natural gas—better fuels than are used here, and fuels which make for quicker melting and longer life. Slag and metal samples, however, are not used for judging the condition of the steel. Here this test is universally practised, and Mr. Baker caught the interest of some manufacturers with his description of it. He is sending over typical samples to illustrate his point. The American method of judging is by the appearance of the steel in the furnace. “But there is a lot of information to be learned by our method,” said Mr. i Baker.

Not “Hustlers?

The party found nothing to support the common impression sedulously cultivated in this country that the Americans work at higher pressure. Their speed of work is about the same time, but they do use more instruments. Proportionately, they have far larger staffs. High labour costs make it advisable to use labour-saving devices at every possible point. On the whole, the relations between employers and men are extremely good. Labour leaders are certainly active in the organisation of strikes; but relationships in each unit are very amicable. Wages are appreciably higher in America. Labourers (and taxicab drivers) make £5, comparing with about £2 over here; but in purchasing power they are pretty equal, for there is a high cost of living. Mr. Baker said he found that firms in the same line of business as Messrs. Baker and Bessemer had no mentionable differences.

It was interesting to find the degree to which the Americans carry their safety first methods Great stress is placed on this subject, and most elaborate precautions are taken to keep down the accident rate. They visited one large plant where there had been no accident for 704 days (though Mr. Baker pointed out that the necessity to maintain this astonishing record caused a rather arbitrary interpretation of the word “accident”).

America’s “Sheffield.”

The men of the party concentrated much attention on Pittsburg, America’s counterpart of Sheffield. But apart from the fact that Pittsburg makes its living from steel there is no resemblance to Sheffield. Indeed, Pittsburg shows , what Sheffield might have been if it had been imaginatively planned. The large Pittsburg works are not grouped together; they are kept separate, and one is divided from another by charming country and lines of trees.

In Chicago, the visitors had an excellent illustration of the hospitality of Americans. They were staying about five miles east of the centre of Chicago, and 20 miles away to the west (but still in Chicago). lived friends. One night, the friend motored the 20 miles to entertain them and then motored back: a journey of 40 miles through traffic.

Article continues