DUNEDIN MANUFACTURES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 816, 25 August 1870, Page 4

DUNEDIN MANUFACTURES.

[Evening Star. | There are some very unpretending looking establishments in Dunedin, where manufacturing processes are followedon a large scale, and with every advantage as to suitable appliances. Trades are growing into importance without attracting public attention. The work is done in rooms away from the public street, and even visitors to the shop in which the articles are sold, seldom suspect that the cheap and ex cellent goods they see, are manufac tured on the spot. In Princes street, nearly opposite the Daily Times office, is the shop of Messrs. Hughes and Harvey. Any one going there for tinware or a colonial oven, would hardly think of asking himself where what he wanted was made. He might be surprised at the difference of price between what he sought to buy now, and what the same goods would have fetched a year ago. If the thought crossed his mind at all, he might attribute it to altered times; and this would be true, but not in the sense in which he imagined it. The alteration is that the goods are now made here which used to be imported—that in spite of high wages and importations duty free they can be manufactured cheaper and better than they can be obtained from home. This can be done by the application of adequate machinery. It seldom enters one's head to think how the tinsmith manages to make jam tins so cheaply, or tins for preserved meats, or billy cans, or saucepans. Most persons would be as much puzzled to answer that question, as George the Third was to know how apples were put into a dumpling ; and they would look with curiosity upon the machinery adapted to eveiy part of the process. The sheet of tin is cut into the necessary forms far more rapidly than it is possible to describe how it is done. Tops and bottoms to the tins are formed by dies that move with irrestible force on pulling a lever, and which stamp them out at one pressure. Shears cut a piece of tin to an unerrring guage of length and width. It is then folded by machinery with the utmost precision, at the edges, so that when they together, they slip imWHgpother and form a joint. Under tbßßorce of another machine the little sheet thus prepared becomes a perfect cylinder. The joint is placed on a narrow steel rail, a little wheel under a heavy pressure is driven along it, and it is perfect—air-tight and water-tight, and in need, afterwards soldered. The saving processes are not the least to be admired. There is nothing wasted. Tinware is so various in its uses that almost every strip can be put to some useful pur-

pose, especially where there are other manufactures carried on. In England scraps, that cannot be used up in tinware' find a market with dolls' dressmakers. No doubt when New Zealand numbers ten or twelve millions in population, colonial dressed dolls will be in demand; but failing these ultimate purchasers for manufacturing purposes, it is still profitable to save the scraps as the tin can be separated from the iron and used over again. In the manufacture of such goods as colonial ovens, similar machinery is required. It is necessary to be able to cut a plate of iron a quarter of an inch thick as if it were card-board ; to punch holes in it as easily and rapidly as a lady could send a needle through a piece of euibroidery; and to rivet each part together,' so that the cook may not have the annoyance of having to contend with the unauthorised entrance into the oven of either flame &r smoke. These conditions are all present at Messrs. Hughes and Harvey's establishment, and it is not too much to say that the substantial strongly made ovens made there are very superior to the flimsy thin-plated imported things, warping and twisting when heat was applied—that a few years ago commanded very much higher prices. We merely single out these few articles as instances of how this manufacture is progressing. The fact that employment is found for such expensive machinery sufficiently proves that our colonial industry is driving the less suitable home manufactures from the market. Mr Vogel's financial scheme must then be remodelled, and other means devised for raising a revenue.