WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1929, Page 3

WELLINGTON NEWS

PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION COSTS.

(Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON. January 28,

It is time manufacturers and industrialists and the Government also turned attention, not merely to the desirability, hut also the imperative necessity of reducing costs of production and distribution. As stated in the Bulletin last issued bv the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, the general concentration on more efficient method; of production en'fored on Europe has not been confined to manufacture, though it is the more apparent. Political changes in parts of Europe have brought great increases in the number of small land holdings, with consequently more intensive cultivation of agricultural and pastoral produce. 'I he general improvement in tfie efficiency of ifarm production throughout the world is probably equalled at least in New Zealand, so it is claimed. Merc products per person employed have increased appreciably in recent years and New Zealand farm industries are at least holding their own against foreign competition in overseas markets. This, of course, refers to our main products only, such as dairy produce, mutton, and lamb and wool, hut there arc other products where costs of production and distribution should ami could be reduced. And these other products are mainly those that are marketed within the Dominion. Where our products have had to compete in the world’s markets necessity has forced upon them the solution o'f the problem of reducing costs, and they have succeeded to a considerable extent, but not so the other producers, whose optics are glued to the local market. Such proclaim their impotenc. and appeal to the Government for protection. They seem unable or unwilling to help themselves and prefer to raise, a piteous appeal to the Government. A ease in point appears to lie the position of growers of small 'fruit in the Motueka and Riwaka districts. These growers claim to he finding themselves in danger from the. competition of imported jams, especially from South Africa, where the fruit, sugar, and other ingredients required 'for jam making were produced by coolie labour. What they desired was an embargo on outside competition and it was urged that with such protection they could increase the acreage and attract more settlors to the district. No doubt the growers of jam fruits in the dsitiicts named are suffering from this outside competition. Dairy farmers have to face outside competition, and the competition of cheap European labour, and yet they have been able to hold their

own. The Kirkpatrick Jam Factory is the principal if not the only 'factory in the Nelson district, and that factory 1s the property of the Henry Jones Co-opera-tive Cov., which own fruit preserving factories in Australia, -South Africa, and California besides New Zealand. This is a manufacturing firm and like all such efforts are being made to cheapen goods to the consume! s. It iprobably quite true that the jams im ported from South Africa are causing the trouble, and no doubt a good deaof the work is done by cheap black labour, hut against this must he set *'■ fact that the jams have come a long way. There is the freight to Australia am the transhipment charges, and the freight to New Zealand . and tlm handling charges, and in spile of the South African jams are cheaper on the New Zealand market. , Many parts o the Union are splendid for fruit growing, and furthermore the other pnnei pal ingredient sugar, is produced there, and is it criminal for us to buy cheap South African jam simply because coolie labour plays an important part in manufacture. Cheap coolie, labour produces the tea which is so freely consumed in New Zealand, and many fruits, too, bananas for instance are the products of the black man. To put an embargo on imported jams means taxing the who o community in order to provide a subsidy for a handful «* growers of jam fruits. And the tax would tall mosth ou the workers and their children. Snrelv there are other ways ol overcoming the difficulty. In Victoria the same trouble exists or existed, and a eomplaisent Government set up laetoiies, and now finds that they arc losing heavily. In Canada when the wheat growers found that no Government assistance was to bo had but that they had to rel on their'own resources they formepools which have turned out a remarkable success. There are said to ho .1 growers of small fruits in the Nelson district and it seems incredible that thev cannot devise schemes lor the more effective marketing erf their small fruit. Tt is doubtful whether an\ effort has been made in this direction, probably because of the labour involved and therefore the line of least resistance is to invoke Government assistance.