SECONDARY INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 117, 15 February 1928, Page 6

SECONDARY INDUSTRY

SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED VISITING MINISTER’S VIEWS At the Raimi Municipal Dairy Factory (Otaki) yesterday afternoon the ■Hon. W. F. Smith, Alinister of Agriculture in Queensland, paid a tribute to the Wellington City Council in respect to 'its municipal milk supply scheme which he'regarded as a great community service in the best interests of the health and well-being of the people. 2b pure and adequate milk supply, he said, was of supreme importance to any city, and what he had seen at the depot in Wellington and had heard since placed him in the position of being able to give valuable advice to Brisbane. , What had struck him as extraordinarily important was the elimination of waste. To see half a dozen, milk-carts serving perhaps twenty people in the same street was so much wasted effort. The visitor expressed himself as pleased with New Zealand and its people, from whom he had received everything in the way of hospitalitv, and said that when he left he would carry away many pleasant memories of the place and the people. Now was the time, he thought, that New Zealand should be seeing to her secondary industries. (Hear, hear.) He had visited the Gear Meat Company’s fine works, and had noticed how very efficiently the work was carried out there; and had' also visited the Wellington woollen works and the woollen factory at Dunedin (Roslyn), and was delighted at the high standard of the products of those mills. It was high time to give such good works every' encouragement, so that new avenues of employment could be opened up in skilled trades for the boys now at school, and at the same time keep money in the country. “I am inclined to think that you do not support your' own industries as you ought,” said Air. Smith. “I find little attempt being made in your shops to push the local article, but rather to sell imported goods,, which may suit, them as an individual concern, but is not in the best interests of the country. In New Zealand, as in Australia, no. effort should be lost to build up the industries, as by so doing you will promote the happiness and well-being of the people as a whole. It is the highest form of citizenship and patriotism to support the manufactures of our fellow citizens. Primary production has alreadv been attended to; now you want wellbalanced, efficiently-managed and controlled secondary industries, which will go far to enrich the Dominion. I wish the people of this fair country every prosperity.” '