6 APRIL 1934, Page 36

THE CEMENT INDUSTRY.

Although the latest report of the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers was a satisfactory one, showing only trifling decline in trading profits, this decline had been, to some extent, anticipated as a result of recent restriction of public works. At the annual meeting held last week, the Chairman, Mr. P. Malcolm Stewart, said that the industry was still feeling the effects of the much reduced expenditure in public and heavy constructional works, and he suggested that there was a case for a reasonable expansion in Govern- ment expenditure at the present time, urging that 80 per cent. of building expenditure found its way directly and indirectly