§ Mr. E. Smithasked the Minister of Supply whether he will have a survey made at once in order to ascertain the number of machines available in the engineering and allied industries for the 491W manufacture of war material; the number being used for the production of direct war requirements; and the number on three shifts, on day and on night production, respectively?
§ Mr. BurginIt is considered that the labour involved in the compilation of the details entailed by the suggested survey would be out of all proportion to the value of the information obtained. It would necessitate the issue of a questionnaire to many thousands of firms and factories, involving the recording and analysis of returns covering some hundreds of thousands of machine tools, and the great variety in machine tools and the detail variations in each type would render it practically impossible to draw any general conclusions from such analysis. The operation of the various raw material controls makes it very difficult for the bulk of machine tools to be employed on other than war work or essential export work. The whole question of machine tools—both usage and production—is under continuous review, and any information provided as a result of the suggested survey could not add materially to the information already available to my Department as a basis for action.