Shipbuilding in the Far East From Our Own Correspondent.
Edinburgh, Dec. 17.
A tour of the shipbuilding and marine engineering works in China, Japan, Canada, and the United States has just been made by Sir Herbert B. Rowell, x.Be., and article contributed to the "Glasgow Herald" he says, "I was deeply impressed by the efficiency their organization, the adequacy of their appliances, their capacity of development, and their potentiality for competition.
"There is, of course," he says. considerable difference in the effectiveness of the management of the works. In Japan the native workmen are under the management of men of their own race; while China the native workman is under what is to him a foreign organization, usually British. In Japan, although the whole organization is of the same race, the division between the managing and working classes is definite and difficult of passage. By tradition the Japanese are amenable to reason and control, although there is an increasing tendency on the part of labour to assert itself. In China the class of labour near the harbours ud ports where the shipyards are situated is accustomed to regard the British managers and foremen as beng of a ruling race. The supervision is done through Chinese "No. 1." chargeman, and the organization, by which the No. 1." is usually also a contractor for the work, all tends to make control easier and to eliminate the danger of labour disturbances.
Tae Cutnese Worx gathered that individually the Chinese shipyard worker is on the whole a better man than the Japanese, and also on a basis of cost of production both are more effective than either the American or the British workman. That this has not been more in evidence in competition with Europe is mainly due to the difficulties these countries have experienced during the war in obtaining delivery of materials and equipment and to the high prices of these owing to the increased cost of production and ex cessive freight charges. With the development of steel mills in China and Korea, however, it is probable that shipbuilding will become a very profitable industry on the West Pacific Coast, and the same causes which are inducing Britons to put up engineering works and steel works and to secure sites for shipyards in India will, I expect, lead to further developments of a like nature in China.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.