Evening star., 1941-03-09
Farming Out of Defense Jobs
Is Pressed as Big Need Now
ia Firms With 95 Per Cent of Big Contracts
Have Relatively Small Proportion of
Necessary Men and Machines
By Marqnis ". CMIdS.

was found prepared to pool facilities to
make a variety of small tools such as
engine and turret lathes, boring mills,
drill presses, milling machines, planerG
and shapers.
But while the idle capacity is available,
many prime contractors-that Is large
scale contractors-have not been inter-
ested in extending the sub-contracting
system. For the most part, the products
they produce are of exceedingly high
precision, a standard that most small
plants have difficulty in attaining. In
recent years the big companies have
come to use new tools which produce
quality at high speed and low cost.
The ordinary machine shop, whose
tools might be Is years old" says bulle-
tin issued by Mr.. Cooke, will not usually
even be considered as a supplier. Hence
on the whole, the farming out does not
go beyond a limited number of we'll
established companies.
British Policy Cited.
Contrast with this a British state
ment of policy which reads: Every firm.
both large and small, which it is at all
practicable to use, should be brought into
the orbit of government orders. This
may entail an increase in costs at the
present time, but in the long run it will
be cheaper to pay more for supplies
which can be produced now than to
practice a false economy which may only
produce them too late
1T has been stated by the general
superintendent of one American engine
manufacturing company that his organ
ization has gone COR will have when pres
ent plans have matured) just about as
far as it is possible to go in contracting
only with the cream of the supplying
companies. 1t is clear that If We
are to anywhere near approximate our
potentialitieS in defense production.
farming out must be pushed much far
ther than it has been into sections OF
American industry whose capacity is not
now being tapped"
After Mr.. Cooke had been working for
some time at promoting the subcon-
tracing system, a unit was created
within the production division of the
Defense Advisory Commission to do the
same thing. 1t was put under Robert
L. Mehornay of the defense contracts
service, who enlisted the Trecker
| brothers, Francis J. and Joseph L.. sue
cessful machine tool builders in Mill
waukee. This new unit is working more
or less independently of Mr.. Cookies
effort
Two Schools of Thought.
Within the Defense Commission 1t Is
obvious there are two schools of thought
on ways to insure that no machines will
stand idle during the crisis. While Mr..
Cooke and the members of his staff
we're working to obtain subcontracts for
small plants, Mason Britton. chief of the
machine tool section of the Office Of
| Production Management, was issuing an
urgent appeal for the immediate sale of
idle machine tools to manufacturers
! working on defense contracts" This Is
in direct conflict with the policy advo-
! Gated by Mr.. Cooke, but such is the huge
complexity of the defense organization
here that contradictions like this are
| possible.
Certainly if defense production in the
| United States is to catch up with Ger
man production. more idle machines and
! more idle workers with machine skills
! must be drawn into industry. The ex-
ample of Germany, as pointed out by
! Mr.. Cooke and others, is striking illus
! tration of the way in which efficiency is
| carried down to small details.
AS part of its rural electrifcation pro-
gram, the Nazi government pushed the
| sale of portable electric motors of lilo
horsepower with the avowed purpose Of
providing labor-saving electric ma
chinery for the farmer. In 1887 sealed
crates of machinery we're delivered to
| electrified farms. Farmers we're told
that these contained machines for max
ing toys and similar products and they
were enjoined to hold them in storage
with seals intact
War Breaks the Seals.
After war against Poland was declared,
instructions did come to the farms,
where the crates were unpacked and the
machines set up in barns and other
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