cost of the garments. The production in the knitting and linking departments was good and the examining and finishing extremely poor. The factory was very crowded. This caused extreme untidiness, having many goods of good quality, knitted in pastel shades, lying on the floor, awaiting the next operation. There appeared to be very little system in this factory and much could be done to improve the flow of garments and we anticipate that the percentage of perfect goods could be higher, simply by "good housekeeping" in an industrial sense.
Re-Settlement Factories
Accompanied by the equivalent of the factory inspector of the colony, we were taken to see re-settlement factories. These are buildings especially built by the Hong Kong Government for light industry. They can only be used for light industry and even under this heading there are considerable restrictions in respect of the industries allowed to operate in these factories. The factories consist of four-storey buildings, built in a similar manner to the pre-war tenement housing blocks in the United Kingdom, each factory unit being about the equivalent size of a dwelling unit in a tenement block approximately 40 × 20 feet, running from the front to the back of the building and, therefore, having light only at the two ends of the room.
The first factory we visited in this resettlement block employed 30 operatives on glove knitting machines, manufacturing gloves for export to all countries in the world. The factory was dark and dingy, so dark that one could have great difficulty in distinguishing between shades of wool and the place gave an overall feeling of despair. Men and women knitters were paid the same rates and were able to earn approximately 10 Hong Kong dollars per day on piece work. They worked 8 hours per day for 6 days.
Because of the physical condition in the factory productivity was naturally low and there seemed to be no system whatsoever in organising the production.
The second factory we visited was employed in winding and knitting on commission. They knitted fabric only and this was done on power flat machines. All the machines in this factory were completely new-they had six winding machines, 24 ends to each and four power flat machines. Five girls were working the six winding machines and one knitter operated the power flat machines. All the fibre being used in this factory was of pastol shades and we were most surprised to see that the next factory to it, separated by only a 41/9" wall, was a brass foundry. The men knitters in this factory would earn 16/17 Hong Kong dollars per day on piece work and the girl winders about 15 Hong Kong dollars per day. It was difficult to assess the productivity in this unit since at the time of the visit they were on short time. As the machinery had not been installed very long they had not at that time been able to organise sufficient orders to keep them on full time. The owner had no doubt in his mind that he would be able to maintain full production without any difficulty whatsoever.
The third factory was specialising in the production of strapping and narrow fabric for insertion in industrial or plastic gloves. At the time of our visit only two girls were working in the factory and we were told that they could not obtain labour. This is understandable since the factory was perhaps the filthiest the team had ever seen anywhere in the world-the machines were
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