VII 24 PAGE SIX THE WORKMAN SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1929.
Electric Age Is Dawning GREAT BRITAIN HAS TOTAL OF 543 MILLIONAIRES SHAGREEN INDUSTRY AT THE Coal. Source of Power is Steadily Losing Much of Its Ground STRIKING STATEMENTS LA MASCOTA Future of World Depende on The Use to be Made of Electricity fine selection of Black Blue Serges, Black Cheviots Vicunas, and Cream Flannels Also ENGLISH TWEEDS the very latest designs in TAILORS TRIMMINGS LA MASCOTA MULLER, Prop. 37 Central Avenue.
LONDON, April 11 There are 543 millionaires in Great Britain, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE IN reckoned on a sterling basie that is TORTOLA to say, with fortunes exceeding one anillon pounds according to the In (From the West Indian Committee land Revenue returns for the year Circular)
ended in March.
It may not be generally known The estimated gross income of that a shark industry has recently the nation was 2, 904, 000, 000, which been established in Tortola, the seat is the lowest for ten years. of Government of the British Virgin For all that there were 299 people Islands, with an income between fifty thou Its founder is Captain William sand pounds and seventy five thou. Young, an enterprising American sand pounds. Their total assessed who knows all that it worth knowincomes amounted to fourteen miling about sharks. Finding that the lion pounds. Ninety seven people fishermen of St. Thomas, where he with incomes of between seventy first began operations, were not enfive thousand pounds and one hunthusiastic about sharks, he transferdred thousand pounds were assessed red his factory to East End, an ideal on eight million pounds, and 147 spot on a wide and sheltered bay in with incomes exceeding one hundred Tortola, where boats can lie close thousand pounds were assessed on in shore and land their cargoes of twenty nine million pounds.
sharks.
Among other large incomes 4, 603 There he has acquired about six people were found to have incomes acres of land, on which he has erectbetween ten thousand pounds and led business like drying sheds, boilfifteen thousand pounds a year, ing houses and store rooms, besides 1, 821 between fifteen thousand a comfortable residence equipped pounds and twenty thousand pounds, with electric light and a small ice920 between twenty thousand pounds making plant.
566 between thirty thousand pounds The system of operations is simand twenty five thousand pounds, ple. Nets, hooks and tackle are 559 between twenty five thousand handed out to the local fishermen, pounds and thirty thousand pounds who are rewarded by per lb. on and forty thousand pounds, 278 be the weight of their catch, which in tween forty thousand pounds and the case of a Nurse shark may fifty thousand pounds.
vary from about 100 to 150 lbs. Altogether 2, 250, 000 paid an in while tiger sharks have been caught come tax last year.
scaling 1, 100 lbs. comparison of these with preThe fishermen employ two methvious figures show that, while there ods of catching sharks, namely, the are 543 millionaires in Great Britain use of hooks and nets. The hook today, there were 546 in 1923, 192 in are baited and attached to large 1924, 697 in 1925 and 569 in 1926. floats, and are examined every hour or so, since captured sharks are Rent Receipt Books in Spanish eagerly eaten by their fellows. The and English for sale at the sets used are known as fill nets Workman Printery.
and have an 8in. or 12 in. mesh.
They are set in areas where sharks are known to congregate, the bottom edge being anchored and the top buoyed by glass floats similar to those used during thew ar for submarine nets. Sharks attempting to pass these nets get caught by their gills and fins, and in their struggles eventually drown or are hauled on board the boats in a weakened state.
As soon as they are captured those still alive are killed by blows of a club on the back of the head or by a revolver shot through the brain.
Skinning is then performed by machinery, and the large sharks are lierally pulled out of their skins in a very short time. The liver is then removed to the boiling house to be reduced to oil, which is said to rank with cod liver oil for quality and to contain certain vitamins, while the skin is carefully cleaned and used As shagreen in the manufacture of ladies shoes and fancy leather artiles. The fins find a ready market in the United States, where they are much appreciated by the Chinese, who make them into soup. The oil is also used in soapmaking, tempering steel, tanning and in the manufacture of linoleum.
The Tortola fishermen have taken readily to the new industry. While wishing this American enterprise success one cannot help regretting that no Englishmen had the enterprise to establish it.
For the photographs from which the illustrations on the opposite page te reproduced the Circular is indebted to Mr. Clarkson, the Commissioner of the Virgin Islands.
London, April 11. Coal as source of power, is steadily losing ground; electricity is making rapid strides.
This is among the conclusions in a report of the World Power ConPerence which represents forty eight countries.
The special investigation on which the report is based have been car.
ried on since 1926, and are the first made by an authoritative body to examine the world situation as a whole, regarding the part which ccal, oil, gas, waterpower and electreity have played and will play, in economic and industrial developtrent.
Coal Resources Other striking statements in the report include: The world coal resources will last for at least 4, 000 years.
The decline in the demand for coal for power purposes in 1928 was not much less than four hundred million tons compared with 1913. world movement towards electrification on the widest possible scale is now under way.
During the last fifteen years the development of oil, the utilisation on an extensive scale of water power.
and the scientife combustion of lowgrade fuels, such as brown coal, have served to complicate the situation, and have rendered necessary a clear conception of the new power produeing elements within the world industrial complex.
It is strongly emphasised that under modern conditions, power is becoming exceedingly important, and the future development of the world as a whole depends on the use that each country will make of its available resources.
Ground to Make Up The figures relating to electricity show that Great Britain has much groud to make up.
In 1927 Great Britain and Ireland, with a population of 47, 286, 444, produced only 8, 750 million unita. In the same year Germany, witha population of 62, 600, 000, produced 12, 444 million units, Norway, with a population of 2, 649, 776, produced eight thousand million units; Japan with a population of 69, 786, 704 also produced eight thousand million units, and the United States, with a population of 105, 710, 620, produced 80. 205 million units; or nearly ten times as much as Great Britain.
Electricity alone, which had reached about 47, 000 million units in 1913, or per cent of what might have heen realised it all power producing materials were used for the generation of energy, had risen in 1927 to more than 190, 000 million units, and the percentage was more than eleven.
Demand for Coul It is assumed that the coal saved through electrification, which is almost exactly equivalent annually to the coal which would have been consumed in generating electrical output in 1927, would have been not less than 100, 000, 000 tons compared with 1918. The result has been, therefore, that these factors have accounted between them for a decline in the demand for coal of not much less than 400 million tons in 1927 compared with 1918.
The United States Geological Survery has estimated the supply of oil at more than 000 million tons, capable of supplying present consumption for about forty years. It is pointed out that this estimate is subject to radical modification as the technique of mining and of ofl extraction changes.
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