Abstract
THERE is a school of economics which lays stress on the importance of exports in order that Great Britain may pay for its imports. At the same time, the home manufacturers ask for some measure of protection so that they can supply the home markets and maintain a manufacturing plant of sufficient size to ensure reasonable costs. An industry which has progressed quite rapidly in Great Britain since the Great War is that of making chemical plant, about which the Industrial Chemist of November has published some interesting statistics. The export trade has gone up from a figure of 100 in 1933 to 131 in the first nine months of 1936. The plant exported goes to less highly industrialized countries and, therefore, is not of the same complexity and costliness of design which the home market demands: thus the average value this year is £67 per ton. Australia and South Africa are now the chief customers for British chemical plant. Great Britain also imports chemical plant, and since there is increasing activity in the chemical industry, the amount of this has increased more than three-fold since 1935, though there are now signs of abatement. The average value per ton this year is £143. Most of the plant, which is generally of a highly specialized nature, has come from Germany. These figures give no indication of the activities of the British plant manufacturers in the home trade, but the same number of the Lndustrial Chemist seeks to remedy this by several pages of pictures of actual plant and new equipment which has been delivered this year, featured under the heading of “Progress”.
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The Making of Chemical Plant. Nature 139, 21–22 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139021e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139021e0