LOCAL MANUFACTURES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 715, 6 September 1869, Page 3

LOCAL MANUFACTURES.

(Wellington Independent.) It is with the greatest pleasure that we ham of the motion proposed to the House of Assembly by the Colonial Trea- ' surer, affirming the desirability of en eouraging local manufactures, and bring--1 ing the theory into practice by suggesting 1 " That in obtaining woollen clothes and blankets for the Defence Force prefer ence should be given to local manufactures over imported goods, supposing that faking the serviceable use into eosisiderasion, the cost will not be greater." This is the kind of protection the country wants, the development of that instinct of self-preservation which is the first law of our nature and which should be as powerful a principle when applied to the salvation of a community from commercial suffering, as it is when acting to pre serve their bodies from physical pain. Looking at the enormous consumption in our colony of such simple manufactures as blue serge and plain cloth (such as the Nelson tweed, the manufacture of which has been proved to pay), we must bo astonished at our own want of energy in failing to appropriate to ourselves so profitable an employment for capital and labor. Even if the first cost of articles of home , manufacture is somewhat more than that of imported goods, it must be borne in mind that in the primitive simplicity of our manufactures we snail be for some ' tune, probably more honest and less given to adulteration of the raw material than are our highly "educated" manufacturers at home, and we shall more than gain in extra wear a return for our slightly in- : creased expenditure. It is not to the matter of woollen cloths or blankets alone that we should confine our pro sent efforts to the establishment of local factories. There is not the slightest reason why the colony should throw ' into other hands the profits of the manufacture as well as charge itself ' with a double carriage to the other side : of the world, on all the wool bales and corn sacks we make use of and consume. In December, 1867, the return of sheep, ' throughout the country was 8.418,549. I Taking a low estimate of one wool bak. required for every 100 fleeces wo must consume at least 81,185 bales, besides an immense quantity of sacks for corn and other agricultural products. Ihe statis- ' tics of 1807 show that bags and bales were imported to the value of £55,000. JSow that the public mind has been directed to the necessity of affirming this true principle of self-reliance and selfprotection, we shall endeavor to keep the subject before the communi'y until the idea becomes a great fact in the history of our colonial trade.