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'A ROMANCE OF INDUSTRY.'
LECTURE TO ROTARY CLUB.
The weekly luncheon of the Rotary
Club was held at Balfour's Cafe, on Fri
day. The Chairman was Rotarian Gavin
Lucas. Amonz the guests was Mr. A. E
Aldridge, a representative ot Willey and
Company, New York. It was .decided to
send a message of congratulation to the
newly-formed Geelong Club. Mr. W.
Snow was admitted to membership.
Rotarian E. W. Holden spoke on 'A
Romance of Industry,' telling the story of
the progress of Holden's motor-body build-
ing works. He said an account of the
business built up from the saddlery works
of Holden & Frost from 1917 to 1925 read
like a fairy story. The business had begun
with re-covering buggy hoods, and when
the first special bodies for motor cars were
built they cost from £50 to £55. To-day
the cost was onp-tenth of that figure. In
1917, when the importation of chassis oniy
had been allowed, the Government had
promised that if the body-building indus-
try were established in Australia it would
be well protected. Holden's had then
purchased the plant of Messrs. F. T. Hack
for £9,000, and had set out to produce
3,000 bodies a year. The speaker had
taken a trial body to Sydney to a confer-
ence of Dodge Brothers dealers, and had
secured the first order. A loss of £20
each had been incurred on the first 26
produced, but the firm had come out
square on the third order, and had not
looked back since. In 1917 they had built
two bodies: but the output for 1925, from
the King Wililam street and Woodville
factories, would exceed 30,000. The value
of the output in 1917, which consisted
mainly of repairs, had been £9,000. and
this year they hoped to exceed £2,000,000.
The floor tpace of the works had increased
from 11,877 square feet to 24 acres, in
1917 they had employed 19 workmen,
whereas the present staff numbered 2,500,
and nearly all their foremen and executives
had risen from the original staff. Recently
they had engaged a number of American
experts, but they would shortly return to
America, and the old foremen would carry
on. The assets of the firm were estimated
at nearly £1,000.000. It was the policy of
the company to buy as much raw material
in Australia as possible, then from Great
Britain, and lastly from foreign countries.
Most of the raw material used was Aus-
tralian; nearly, all the timber was Tas-
manian, and they used 4,500,000 ft. a year.
They were now endeavouring to make the
works self-contained and had established
their own timber-bending, spring-making,
and nickle-plating plants. Their timber
mills were the largest in the British Em-
pire. Bodies were assembled on the pro-
gressive system.. They had a splendid sys-
tern of accounting, and prepared produc-
tion schedules for five months ahead. In
conclusion, he said Holden's were proud
of what they ' d achieved. They esti-
mated that 10,000 South Australians were
dependent upon them. They brought
£1,500,000 into the State a year. Statistics
showed that, given normal seasons, busi-
ness would never be less than at present.
The question was how much it could be in-
creased. They were not selling a luxury,
but a necessary form of transport, which
was nowhere more needed than in Aus-
tralia.
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