STIFLED INDUSTRIES.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 163, 28 July 1937, Page 4

STIFLED INDUSTRIES.

x Following closely on what was said here yesterday with respect to Ihe strangling etffect of recent legislatidn and its application upon wage-paying industries of the country, we have to-day from Wellington a report by the Secretary of the NeW Zealand Manufacturers* Association wliicb amply confirtna thewiews then expressed. This shows very clearly that alfeady a distinct rot has begtin in the industrial life of the Dominion. Nor is it manifesting ltself in only one or two of our seconadry industries. It is to be seen in several, and those, too, such as provide work for many, in the aggregate thousands, of hands. Among them he instances the manufacture of clothing of all kinds, of footwear and of the leather that goes in'fo it, and even oi confectionery. All this, it may be said too is merely a fullilment oi" predictioris that were made a few months back by Mr A. E. Mander, a former secretary of the Manufacturers' Association on the eve of his retirement. Then, however, the representations made .and the protests entered were lightly brushed aside by the %inisters coticerned and practically no notice has been taken of them. Indeed, the burdens, restrictions and * restraints imposed upon those engaged in these and other industries and responsible for payment of Ihe wages earned in them have, if anything, been increased and tightened up. The consequences are now definitely emerging in the shape of inability to compete on the home markei with imported wares of a Iike character. Instead of there being — as there has been in the case of every previous revival of the Dominion 's general prosperity after a depression — a revival also in the activities of the factories providing for the people's wants, we are now told that they pre forced lo reduce hands, and are, in some cases, likely to be forced out of business altogether. This is a rather sorry sta..e of alfairs, when we look baqk upon all the bright promises that were made about unemployment being banished from the land al*most in the twinkling, of an eye, once Labour came into power. The value of our exports of primary products last year constituted a record for all time, wages — as they would have been under any Government — have been restored lo their pre-depression level. Under ordinary conditions this would have meant — as in like case it has invariabiy done before — inctftased employment for those earning a living for them selves and their families in the production of the goods to be bought with the sound money thus put into circulation throughout the country with a corresponding improved demand also for our primary products upon our home markets. Why is it that on this occasion, when conditions are so markedly favouroble, the reduction in the numbers of the unemployed is so miserably slow and there is no recourse to be taken but to place them at the taxpayers* expense on public works of one kind or another that economists are now agreed should be conserved for times of adversity ? And what is to become of those so placed when those works are finished, as they will be within a calculable and ot very lengthy time ? These are auestions the wag'e-etrners, no less than the wagepayers, may well put to thems'elves. And if they look mtelligently for the answers the^ will have no very great difficulty in fmding them. " By way of diverting people's attention from much more pressing and Immediate problems, great public play has recently been made by the Government and its supporters with the question as to how our population is to be increased. That is certainly a subiect to which serious thought has to be given. But does not all' this current talk about it have rather a hollow sound when we realise how the industries that might be expeeted to furnish a livelihood for the hve million aimed at are being smotheerd out of existence? For Ihere to be more wage-earners there must also be more wage-pay-ers, or else an increased paying capacity on the part of those already in operation. What is our Government doing to helpin bringing about either alternative? It is a favourite cry of our Cabinet Ministers and their parliamentary supporters to speak of their being engaged in bringing "order out of chaos" — a chaos, by the way, that has never existed. What is to be said of the industrial chaos which they themselves would seem to be creating? Whose unhappy job will it be to bring order out of that?