A MATTER OF PRICE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 253, 20 July 1921, Page 6

A MATTER OF PRICE

PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT BUYS ABROAD THE PROTEST FROM AUCKLAND Auckland ironmasters and their employees recently sent to the Minister of Public Works a protest against the action of tho Public Works Department in deleting from contracts for plate steel girders clauses specifying that the work should -be done in New Zealand. They drew the attention of tho Minister to the increasing amount of unemployment in the iron trade of tho Dominion, and requested him. to reinstate the deleted clauses in the specifications for any work which could lie done in New Zealand.

Commenting -on this protest yesterday, the Hon. J. G. Coates said that the question was largely one of cost. It was the practice of the Public Works Department to give preference io New Zealand manufacturers wherever reasonably possible, even when the local price was rather higher than tho price quoted by manufacturers in Britain or elsewhere. But obviously this policy could not bo carried to extremes without injustice to the general public, and this was especially the case at a time when tho funds at tho disposal of the Department had to be guarded severely. If money were spent unnecessarily in the purchase of material, there was so much less money available for the payment of wages by the Department. Tenders had been colled for certain steel girders in the ordinary way, and sonic British manufacturers, as well as New Zealand firms, had tendered. Tho New Zealand prices in some instances had been very nearly double the British price?- He did not know why this should bo the case, but clearly it would bo a serious matter for the Department to reject the lower tenders in such, circumstances.