The NATIONAL SOCIETY OF ENGINE CONSTRUCTION presents itself for the first time to the public.

It is one of the seven National Societies created by the Ministry of Air under the Law of August 11, 1936. Few people know exactly what a National Society is. So much has been said or written about it, dictated alas! by ignorance or passion, it seems to us necessary to say here what we are and what we do.

A National Company is a Limited Company incorporated under the 1867 Act, just like all the Limited Companies. One of its shareholders is the State, which holds at least two-thirds of the shares. Nobody is an official there. It pays all taxes, all taxes, like any other Limited Company. It draws up balance sheets and its cost prices are directly and exactly comparable to those of its competitors.

The interest of the experiment is considerable.

The Legislator of 1936 wanted first of all to remove an important branch of the industries working for National Defense from the grip of private interests. He thought that it was immoral that one could get rich, in peacetime as well as in time of war, by levying on the sums granted by the nation to its protection. He thought it was nasty that the lure of profit could push some groups to influence the politics of the nations, to throw them first into the arms race, then into the war. Lastly, he thought that, if circumstances made these armaments indispensable, it was proper that the State should remain master of the factories, master of grouping them, and of moving them, master of their supplies, master of their credits.

Inspired by these thoughts, nationalization is something big.

It is difficult because it hurts routines, prejudices, interests. She has external difficulties; she also knows some interior ones, the most serious of which is statism. Nationalization must remain industrial: it must at no price become bureaucratic, otherwise it will fail. To succeed, nationalization will force the state to become an industrialist. This action in the field is not of slight importance.

The men at the helm of the NATIONAL SOCIETY OF ENGINE CONSTRUCTION are deeply imbued with the ideas we have just described. They had serious difficulties. Neither they, nor their collaborators, nor the entire plant staff, doubted the success.

One of the principles that have guided us is that the strength of a company is above all, made of the technical and professional value of the men who compose it. So we did a very large part:

• To the training of the personnel, Engineers, Masters, Workers.
• Developing Researches and Trials.

We will find this double concern, and in the pages that follow, and in the presentation of our booth at the Salon.

Claude BONNIER,
Civil Engineer of Mines, Doctor of Science,
Managing Director and General Manager of S.N.C.M.