DOMINION'S INDUSTRIES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 54, 1 September 1926, Page 9

DOMINION'S INDUSTRIES

PUBLICITY IN AMERICA

KEPORT TO GOVERNMENT,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SAN.FRANCISCO, Bth August.

That the Government of New Zealand is taking a big hand in stimulating industrial development in the Dominion, is the opinion, expressed in an official report to the Department of Commerce by J. C. Hudson, who recently relinquished the post of Consul at Wellington, after five years there.

Infant industries are being protected, by tariff aids to commodities and products that may be manufactured and produced locally, says Mr. Hudson, who makes the following comment on the industrial situation of New Zealand: — "So far, manufacturing in the- Dominion, is confined largely to the preparation of its farm, dairy and pastoral products for the market, and to the production, of articles thai; do not require a great amount of highly-skilled labour. There are, however, several plants which manufacture high-grade equipment, which .require both skilled labour and intricate machinery.

"There was a total of 44.57 factories throughout the Dominion on olsfc March, 1925, an increase of Sli over the preceding year. The industries contributing mainly to this increase were sawmills, printing and publishing, engineering, motor and cycle engineering, and furniture making. Coach building and.a few other industries registered declines.

"The majority of the "Dominion's industrial plants are small," adds-Mr. Hudson, who recapitulates, for the knowledge of American traders, the salient facts of the statistical progress of industrial plants.

He emphasises the growth of industry generally by the statement that wages aggregated £13,557,000, an increase of more than 10 per cent., while the average wage increased a little more than £10 per annum. He also alludes to the fact that the average annual wage per employee, including both sexes, in New Zealand, has increased nearly threefold, from £70 to £189 in the past quarter of a century.

Mr. Hudson's report on the trade of New Zealand, which gets wide publicity in the official organ of the United States Government, is of the type to place the Dominion very favourably before Americans and Canadians.