Tinplate Specialist on Need for Using the Best Metal Capt. R. T. Nevill, director and head of international sales of the!
South, Wales Tinplate Corporation, Ltd, one of the largest organi of its kind in the world, is visit Shanghai on an extensive tour in the interests of his firm, which is making a determined attempt to increase the sales of Welsh tinplates: abroad. The organization which represents includes a dozen tinplates manufacturing firms controlling over 60 per cent. of the produ of over 10,000,000 Welsh tinplates trade and has
boxes annually. Tt spot in the best quality plates for all kinds fish and milk tinning and also doves a large business in oil sizes.
Capt. Nevill, who is anxious to get into touch with buyers and of tinplates of all ies, is of the opinion that. edible Chinese products could ea command a wider sale if canned by modern methods was successful in his mission in Hongkong and Singapo: where he addressed large gather the packers to get together to form associations to control prices for the buying of the raw material and selling the finished product.
Having already visited various Chinese ports and cities, actively studying the possibilities of the tinplates market and the develop-iment of this market by the increasing of consumers engaged in canning fruit, vegetables, fish, ete. Capt. Nevill was interviewed by representative of the "North-China Daily News." He emphasized that he intended no criticism marks but a genuine desire to help and increase trade, generally. "The market in Hongkong and the South China port area," he said, appears at present to be entirely in the hands of dealers, there being, few actual consumers' of tinplates, There is a good deal of room for improvement in the method of, doing business in that it passes through so many hands before reaching the consumer that the price of primes' becomes pro-Nbitive and the market has, therefore, been confined to second quality' or wasters.' This in itself is bad not only for the tinplates manufacturers but for the merchants and, in particular, for the canner and the consumer of his products.
"A waster' isa second quality plate which, through some fault in manufacture, is thrown out in sorting and sold at a considerable reduction in price. This means that there is a possibility of the: food in the.can coming into contact with the untinned portion of the steel plate and of injurious chemical action being set up, with consequent. danger to the health of the consumer. ~The employment wasters,' therefore, by the canners tends to lower the quality of their product and discredit the value of their efforts to build up a new industry. This seems a great pity, especially at a time when China is commencing to take her rightful place in the world's markets. Unless the quality of canned products improves, it will only. be possible to sell goods to such sections Chinese themselves here and abroad who only study price and not! quality, and it will be impossible] to compete against modern Euro-Tean and American goods," remarked.
With regard to the canneries issited and samples of cans seen, pt. Nevill said that he had to admit there was room for con siderable improvement. The _pre-rises, for the most part, were dark, dirty and cramped and a European buyer visiting such canneries would of necessity come away with a strong bias against purchasing goods therefrom. The cans themselves were badly constructed and, being. usually made by hand, were not true to gauge and such imperfections were covered with lumps of solder an effort to get the can air-tight. with the danger of some places being overlooked.
"The remedy is in the hands of the packers themselves," observed Capt, Nevill. "In order to turn cut safe, attractive goods, it is necessary first to use only high-class, first quality, prime tinplates,
converted into sanitary cans These, in their turn, "should be Gleed by modern accurate automatic high-speed can-making machinery.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.