Fire-prevention was first carried out by a fire-fighters' group under the chief watchman. In 1907 both the fire and the watching services were reorganized, and H. T. Hunt, a born fireman who had first seen the light of day on the premises of the Manchester fire brigade, was given the American title of fire marshal.

For a time the works mail was collected at the Manchester G.P.O. and brought out by a pony and trap, but later this duty was taken over by a White steam car. When the driver, one Marlow, was promoted to drive the works locomotive, he performed some hair-raising feats of speed round the track, which the railway company's locos were prohibited from using as the rails were only spiked to the sleepers. Other internal transport was provided by donkeys and, later, horses, which were used to drag heavy castings from the foundry; here, rabbits burrowed in the moulding sand, and frogs croaked happily.

Wages were drawn at the end of the week from a series of pay-boxes erected in the yard and guarded by the works police. A popular job with apprentices was making up the wages in the paymaster's office—with the help of the girls in the cost department.

On the shop floor the early days were not happy, partly because some of those in charge did not appreciate the difference between English and American conditions. The American foremen had a difficult task but were often difficult taskmasters. It was a cosmopolitan era—one department advertised "twenty-six languages spoken here"—and there was little consideration or cooperation; smooth and efficient working was hardly possible. Labour was engaged and discharged indiscriminately, and yellow slips denoting dismissal were constantly expected in the pay packets. The name Westinghouse was generally associated with 'here today and gone tomorrow', a reputation that took much living down.

Yet in a few years this chaotic youth developed to an ordered maturity, thanks to a spirit of cooperation engendered above all by a man—P. A. Lange—and an organization—the British Westinghouse Engineers' Club.

CRISES AND RECOVERIES

DIFFICULT years were ahead. It would be a long time before the works was fully occupied; the facilities available were much too great for the market, and competition was fiercer than had been expected. Electrical distribution lagged behind other countries, and railway electrification was slow except in the London area. The value of orders, which had been increasing steadily—from £547,000 to £1,657,114 in four years—began to fall off.