CLOSER SETTLEMENT, MORE PEOPLE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 169, 4 August 1937, Page 6

CLOSER SETTLEMENT, MORE PEOPLE

N.Z. Should Develop ihe Secondary Industries SELF-CONTAINMENT AIM The opinion that the prosperity and permanence of New Zealand lay in eloser settlement and increased population . was voiced by the Hon. W. E.. Barnard, M.P., ra his address in Napier , last evening. He strongly urged the fostering of • primary and secondary industries, particulary the Idtter, with a view to more self-containment. "Lahour asks to be judged at the next election not by its aehievement up to the presenf time, with only .one session of Parliament gone," he eaid. "We ask that you judge us on our record at the end of next year, when there will have been three sessions completed. When looking ahead we find there are rnany problems facing us. There is the question of whether or not we are to develop mainly as a primaryprOducing country or try to strike a hetter halance between primary and secondary industry. "Mr Nash will tell ue of the result of his mission upon his return' within tho next few days, and we shall then know if we. are to seeure a laTger market in Britain for our primary products." Mr Barnard said that the Printe Minister had already indicated that he xoresees greater development of secondary industry in New Zealand, and witli this view Mr Barnard was in accord. "We are much too lopsided from an economic etandpoint," he said. ".All our eggs are in one baskets and that basket is 10,000 miles away. More selfcontainment and greater production of essential goods an New Zealand itseif would keep the Dominion on a steadier keel when the storms of adverse world conditions commence to gather. "I am beginning," he added, "tothink that we must pay attention t.o closer land settlement, and"I think we can find our new farmers from the people who are already here. For markets we shall have to do what the Japanese have done — burst into them. While there are millions of underi'ed and underclothed people in the world we have no right to say: 'No more land, settlement, or no more production from our splendid soil.' "The Prime Minister has said that there should be more secondary industry, and I agree. But I go a step further and say that to expand- the production of New Zealand goods we must expand- the number of New Zealand consumers. With 5,000,000 people here we could establish a soun-d equilibrium. If we were prepared to build up our population we could greatly eas.e the problem of overseas markets for. f arm products and make possible -the establishment and functioning of prosperous secondary industries. ' ' Begarding Public Works, Mr Barnard said that there were limits to their continuous development. What was required was the placing of jobless men at work which added to the real wealth of.the country. "We should try to make them producers — creators of new wealth. I would sooner see a mau • xaising wealth from the soil, or creat* oiig it in a factory, than . spending his energies and the countTy's rqoney in making new and not wholly necessary railways, or making better roads already in fair good order. "Here again, hoth closer settlement and increased production loom up and to my mind indicate the path we ought to tread_ ' ' he added.