IS THIS OUR REPUTATION?

Chronicle (Levin), 7 August 1946, Page 8

IS THIS OUR REPUTATION?

NEW ZEALAND AS SEEN BY AN ENGLISH VISITOR

A national njewsletter publisjied by a leading finu dealing in a large way in electrical goods, has the following eomment to make on a vjsit to New Zealaud: — New- Zealaud presents a considerably less inspiring prosp'ect to the visitor. The people are individually as charming as ever and as friendly towards Britain. But taken together as a nation they are now inelining mueh more towards America (they did not have an American "army. of occupation" like Australia). Cases are not infrequent of the New Zealanders insisting on buying American goods, even though this means added pressure for dollars within the sterling area. What is far more disturbihg is the general attitude towards work, politics and life generally. The sheep faripers are working hard and are prepared to go on doing so. One does not get the impression that the rest of the population — speaking hroadly — is wprking hard or is prepared to do so. The 40hour working week is now an accepted thing for the country generally, and inany of the workers are now demanding the figure should he reduced to 35. The trouble is that many don't appear ready to huckle down and do their job properly even for this short working week. When we arrived in Wellington we found the . harbour iilled with ships loaded with goods from Britain destined for New Zealaud customers. The ships could not be unloaded because, for some quite footling reason, the Wellington dookers had gone 011 strike. After four davs of v7ain efforts to get the dockers back to work, the ships sailed, still loaded, to Dunedin. By the time they got there, the Wellington dockers had induced the Dunedin dockers to eome out. The ships were then taken to Auckland to find the same thing had happened. With ihe present world shortage of shipping, something had to be done; so the ships linally sailed to an Australian port, where the goods were unloaded to await shipment some time to Nevv Zealand. This sort of thing appears to be disturbingly frequent.

Another illustration of the present eeonomic situation. New Zealand has great reserves of hydro-electnc power. But this is being developed and used so inefHciently that the electric current is turned olf all" over the country for a'poriod every day. Trams, etc., come to a standstilR We paid a business call on one of the top people in the hydroelectric organisalion and found hiin trajjped in a lift between floors, where he remained for some time till the current came 011 again! Lethargy and apathy assume dangerous proportions in the New Zealand set-up today. Their paralysing effect creeps over public affairs as well as industrial and commercial administration. With them goes a sort of national fclindness in eeonomic matters. For instance, there is a policy of creating secondary industries without any regard to the net result. As a consequence, fully manufactured parts of some article will be imported, assembled in New Zealand and sold at a far higher price than the same article could he 'importfed xully assemhled from, say, Britain. Such products are often marked "Made in New Zealand."