Kindling by Nevil Shute Page A

all, and that threw over a thousand out of work at once. And there didn’t seem to be any reason for it,” she said. “It wasn’t bad management, or anything like that—so far as we could see. It just happened.”
    “That was in 1928?” he asked.
    “About that time. And then one day, everybody got their notice. They pasted up a placard on the shipyard gates to say that the yard would be suspending work for a time during reorganisation. Everybody thought it would be quite a short time, and it was only a matter of getting a new company going, or something. But it went on—and of course the plate mills closed at the sametime. And then, about six months after that, the men started to run out of benefit, and had to go on to the transitional scheme, and then on outdoor relief. And now we’ve got the P.A.C. and the Means Test.”
    He said, “Has nothing happened to the shipyard since then?”
    She shook her head. “Nothing. They say now that it may never open again.”
    He was silent.
    “We can’t believe that, here in Sharples,” she said quietly. “Things always do come right, somehow or other. Don’t they?”
    He did not try to answer that. “Has there been any attempt to start up other industries?” he asked.
    She smiled a little wryly. “Basket-making, and fancy leather work,” she said. “The Council of Social Service are doing their best, and I suppose it’s a good thing to try and get the men to do something with their hands. But … I don’t know. There were seven Barlow destroyers at the Battle of Jutland—did you know that, Mr. Warren? I’d have thought they might have found something better for our men to do than fancy leather work.”
    “Nobody’s tried to start up a light industry—plywood or wireless sets, or anything like that?”
    She shook her head. “I haven’t heard of anything like that.”
    He nodded thoughtfully. A year before a man had come to him with quite a good proposition to manufacture a German type of carpet sweeper under licence. He had proposed to set up a factory in a depressed area of South Wales. Ruefully Warren remembered his ownwords. “You must cut out the philanthropy,” he had said. “Nobody’s going to give you money for that. You’ll have your work cut out to get this thing established anyway, without planting it in an atmosphere of failure.” A little factory had been put up at Slough, and it was doing well.
    She said, “It’s a wicked thing to spread a rumour like the one that’s going round now, that the Yard will never open again. It takes all the heart out of the people. It makes them feel there’s nothing to look forward to—ever. And besides, it isn’t true.”
    “Why not?” he asked.
    “Ships always have been built in Sharples. All the ships are getting worn out. As soon as this depression lifts, a lot of new ships will be wanted, and things will come right again.”
    “That may be,” he said slowly. “But you’ve got to face the facts.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It seems to me that Barlows is out of the business. No ships have been built here for a long time. Who’s going to place the first order?”
    She hesitated. “I suppose somebody will want a ship some day.”
    “I know. But put yourself in his shoes. If you were spending fifty thousand pounds of your money on a ship, where would you go to order it? Most probably it wouldn’t be your own money. You’d not have that much loose capital; you’d go and borrow most of it from your bank. Would you order the ship from one of the big firms in Belfast, or in Wallsend, or the Clyde? They’d build you the ship in six months, and guaranteedelivery to the day. Or would you come and place your order here?”
    She was silent.
    “The bank wouldn’t let you place your order here,” he said. “They’d be afraid that something would go wrong, that it would be a bad ship and no security for their loan.”
    “I know,” she said quietly. “I know that is the difficulty. One