The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 1903. DISPLAY OF LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2142, 18 March 1908, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 1903. DISPLAY OF LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

Tho suggestion that lias been circulated by tho Canterbury Industrial Association to the effect that a week should be set apart throughout the Dominion during which shopkeepers should make a special display of local manufactures .is one that should receive earnest consideration in overy town where there are New Zealanders who have .any Teal pride in their own country. The apathy shown by the general public on the •question of supporting tho trade in goods manufactured by themselves is really deplorable. It is true that this country is so admirably adapted for grazing live stock that tho export of mutton, lanib, butter, and cheese naturally forms tho most important part of tho Dominion’s business, but that is surely no reason why we .should spend tho bulk of tho .proceeds in purchasing English and foreign goods, thus supplying wages for outsiders whilst our own manufactures continue on a ridiculously amalll so.de. When Sir Joseph Ward stumps the country, orating in grandiloquent terms, ho is wont to make great capital of tho great increase ill our exports; and tho latest year book shows that wo shipped no less than £18,000,000 worth of produce to England and other countries dn 1906. The sum looks looks big, and it certainly as a wonderful return for so small a community, but when it is remembered that our imports for the same period also cost us over £15,000,000, it will bo seen that there is not so much to boast about from a financial standpoint. The fact of tho matter is the Now Zealander has acquired a very undesirable habit of relying upon other people for his necessities, and has done at so long that lie fancies ho is qu.ite unabllo to supply his own wants. If ho wants a railway or .a .bridge ho sends 13,000 miles to an English money-lender for tho money to pay for the English or American manufactured materials, and also for the wages necessary for local hands to put them together. If lie wants a suit of clothes ho .passes by the finest woollen goods :in the world manufactured in Christchurch, Dunedin, Auckland, and Petone, and asks for West of England tweed; if a pair of boots arc needed ho imagines it a sign df weakness socially and otherwise to be seen walking the streets in a New Zealand ‘manufactured pair, .and insists upon American or English brands. ITo rides through the streets in ■ an imported motor car or bicycle, or 'a Yankee pony chaise, whilst his wife is dressed almost entirely iu foreign frills. One might have .thought that New Zealand could have have produced suffiL cient eatables for its own people, yet we import fruit from California, cereals from the Eastern United States, send .to Italy for lemons, whilst even eggs were imported to tho valine of over £3OOO last year. One doesn’t care to accuse such a person of lack of patriotism ; his attitude is usually the result of pure thoughtlessness. If ho reflected for a moment ho would realise that .in many of the lilies enumerated he could receive just as good an article for tho same .expenditure and keep tho money in the country, and it is precisely this sort of person who would bo appealed to by flic "New Zealand Week” that it is proposed to hold. When if is remembered that the amount wo spend at present oil English and foreign goods is sufficient .to keep 100,000 hands constantly employed at good wages in our own country, at willl be recognised how immensely important this subject really is from tho .population aspect-. The standpoint that should be taken by every patriotic New Zealander is .that whore possible we should .spend every penny in our own country, for by so doing we are developing our own manufactures, and every pound available for wages to a working man makes for the progress of our own land, wheras every pound spent on foreign goods financially strengthens a nation from whom at some period we may be called upon to defend ourselves. Our people have been preached to, ip season and out of season, by our professional politicians for years about self-reli-ance, but we may ask where is the self-reliance of a people who depend upon the sweating dens of America, Germany, and England, for the bulk of the articles that have to he ananu■faofcured by hand or machinery? Ii New Zealand is to take her place as J .a young nation, with a future to be •reckoned with, her people must not' be satisfied simply with the. role of shepherds and dairymen, but. must •make up their minds to be self-con-tained, manufacturing everything that they can reasonably need. Of course, there is an economic .principle that must bo recognised .in such matters, and it would be a poor sort of

business acumen .that would induces j us to spend .a .pound in tile 'local .mun- ' ufucuro of an article that can bo ini- I ported for half that amount, but at the same time wo are quite satisfied that it would ho economically prolilablo for New Zcalamlors .to manufacture in their own country a very large proportion of the goods they .at present import. That they do not do so is an admission of incapacity that should bo repugnant to every Now Zealander with a scrap of patriotism in his constitution.