The Company was quick to spread its wings in the ex-German markets on the Continent. The largest waterwheel generators yet built in this country have been made for Finland; 220-kV switchgear and high voltage transformers are in hand for Finland and Holland, and power plant equipment for Portugal. Licence agreements with Dutch and Danish firms are less obvious exports, but none the less valuable in the national interest.

Today we are represented abroad by five offices, four associated companies and forty-one agents, operating in seventy towns and thirty-four countries, and are fortunate in possessing many engineers having long overseas experience and well fitted to face the situation when conditions become more normal. The sending of specialists abroad by air to help the local representatives without waste of time has proved very useful in dealing with the wide range of M-V products.

Perhaps the most important development affecting exports is the tendency for the Commonwealth nations to manufacture in their own countries everything they can make economically. Industrial developments of great importance are in progress in Australia, India and South Africa. This Company with its high level of technical and scientific knowledge can be of great assistance, not only by supplying the machinery required but also by exporting men and experience.

In South Africa, where M-V has supplied more electrical plant than any other manufacturer, the long-standing link with Union industry has been strengthened through A.E.L, which first acquired an interest in the Vanderbiji Engineering Corporation (Vecor), mechanical engineers of Johannesburg, and more recently took a financial interest in First Electric Corporation, the largest electrical manufacturers in South Africa. These associations entail the provision of technical information and the transfer of highly qualified engineers from this country, and the M-V Company will be an important contributor to this form of invisible export.

ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES—
Before giving an account of the extensive changes in the factory and of departmental reorganization and development after the war, some important changes in the Company's administration must be recorded.

In June 1945 it was decided to revive the office of managing director after a gap of eighteen years, and I. R. Cox was chosen to follow in the distinguished line of Carlton, Lange and Hilton. Cox started as a college apprentice in 1911, and after some years in the mechanical engineering department had established a high reputation on export work in Russia, Australia and America. Besides being joint managing director of the Export Company from 1941, he was a director of the parent Company and general sales manager from April 1944.