The Growth of Light Industry By CHARLES OAKLEY S LOGANS have
been freely bandied about in Scotland these last twenty-five years but, . so far as people knowledgeable on economic questions are concerned, there has been perhaps only one of any real significance. It is that Scotland needs more light industries. The depression was very bad in Scotland during the early 1930s. One third of the registered workers were unemployed, a plight they shared with others in South Wales and on the North-East Coast. It seemed significant that, as these 'distressed areas' were all associated with the heavy industries, what they needed were more light industries to establish a better balance. Later in the decade, in 1938, these same heavy industries became busy again and they have been the main prop ever since of the development areas, as they are now called. But unhappy memories of the doleful early Thirties persist—and so does the belief that the salvation of these districts is to be reached only by their procuring a bigger share of the new industries which have been growing up in the London district.
Almost all of these industries can unquestionably be described as light—for instance, those that manufacture food- stuffs and domestic chemical goods. . Many branches of engineering too, particularly those in which large numbers of women are engaged in repetitive work, have similarly been disposed to seek locations near London. But, after that, certain qualifications are needed, because many of the other light industries are not notably connected with London, and have, indeed, focal points' far away from London—almost all branches of the textile industry, for example, the leather industry, the printing industry, the industries which make pottery and glassware. This qualification is a particularly important one for Scotland itself, because some well intentioned but not particularly well informed people, when seeking new light industries, overlook the substantial interest their native country already had in the older-established light industries. Often it will be found that only one factory is producing the particular goods being spoken about, and that it has only a mere handful of employees. Perhaps it is the last survivor of an industry that knew better days, or perhaps it represents an industry that never really got going in Scotland but managed to hang on precariously by meeting the special needs of some local customers.
An analysis of the products of the majority of the light industries in Scotland discloses extensive diversity to be set against comparatively small total outputs. Scotland makes, for example, many kinds of glass articles—cut glassware, coloured glassware, laboratory glassware, sheet glass for windows, fibreglass for insulation, glass-lined containers for foodstuffs and chemicals, lenses for scientific instruments, and mirrors—but the only firms employing substantial numbers of people are those manufacturing glass bottles. Similarly with the industries that make things out of wood. The largest employers are the timber merchants and those who make boxes and house fittings. The furniture industry has fallen away, in spite of the recently established reputation of a few firms which have adopted very modern designs and which specialise in making new kinds of furniture, such as bed-settees. numbers of popular periodicals are printed each week in Dundee; the Scottish newspaper industry is still strong; and the range of Scottish specialities extends from printing maps, Stationery and greeting cards to making cardboard boxes and paper dress patterns. Of all the Scottish light industries the most comprehensive is, however, the textile industry. A recent estimate showed that Six hundred factories are engaged in it, with employees numbering 125,000. Almost every conceivable kind of textile manufacturing is carried out in Scotland. The traditional fabric is linen, but nowadays wool forms much the largest branch of the trade, including woven tweeds, knitted fashion goods, underwear, carpets, blankets and knitting yarns. After that comes cotton—nothing like the immense industry in which 200,000 people are said to have been engaged a century ago, but still important for its sewing thread, shirtings (claimed to be the finest in the world), lace and muslin, furnishing fabrics, bed sheets, towels, blinds, canvas and fishing nets. An unexpected trend of recent years has been for Lancashire firms to establish branch factories in central Scotland, so reversing a movement that had been going on for almost one hundred years.
Industrial developments in Scotland over the last few years are said to have created 100,000 new jobs—that is to say jobs Which would not have been in existence if the industrial struc- ture of Scotland had remained as in 1938. Not only are most of these jobs in light industries but, to be more specific, they are in light engineering. In recent years Scotland has become the principal centre in Great Britain for the production of several articles which were scarcely made at all in Scotland before the war.
To Scotsmen one reassuring feature has been the liking which American and Canadian industrialists are showing for their country. Since the war no fewer than twenty branch factories have been set up in Scotland by North American firms. Most of them are getting bigger and some are two or three times as large as was intended when they first came into production a few years ago. Furthermore, other transatlantic companies are likely to follow their example before long in opening factories in Scotland. A New York firm has recently announced that the productivity of the workers in its Clydeside light engineering factory is higher than that achieved in its other factories in the United States and in the Dominions.
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