The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER. 23, 1929. SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 November 1929, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER. 23, 1929. SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

Which the prosperity of the Dominion depends mainly upon the productive capacity of its primary industries it cannot be ignored that its progress is bound up largely, also, with the welare of its secondary industries. It is t matter, however, of common knowledge, as an exchange remarks, that die secondary industries are generally not expanding in proportion to the growth of the population of the country. Of some important secondary industries, indeed, it Tnay be said that they are merely “marking time.” This is to be regretted, as an expansion of these industries would have been of considerable value in mitigating the gravity of the problem of imeniployment. Actually, as was shown in the annual report of thb Department of Industries and Commerce, the number of manufacturing establishments in New Zealand last year was 78 in excess of the number in the preceding year, but there was a 1 reduction in the number 01 hands employed, and .unfortunately this reduction wholly applied to male wage-earners. It is a very significant circumstance, indeed, that while tlie number of female employees increased by 817 the number of males dropped by 981—a circumstance that seems to suggest that there Was iv displacement of male by female labour to a not immaterial degree. Tlie wages that were paid in 1928 also were less by £171,845 than in the previous year (although the wages paid to female employees showed a)i '-increase of £02,789), hut the respect in which the comparison between the two years was, perhaps, most unfavourable was that of the added value of tin" prod nets of industry, this “added value” being the difi'ereneo between tlie cost of materials and the value of the finished products. In 1927 the added value was £32:799,021 and last year it was £32.421,285 - a drop of £377,(30. Among the 111 or' severely depressed industries are tnose of bo it and shoe manufacturing and sawmilling. The hoot and shoo manufacturing industry has been the subject of investigation by a special committee, including representatives of both employers and employees, which furnished a report of a somewhat inconclusve character to Parliament a

few weeks ago. In 1925 the sawmills of the Dominion employed no fewer than 10.082 hands, but two years later the number dropped to 8198. Thus in two years 189.4 men had to find employment elsewhere or else increase the number of unemployed. T*e total value of the output of the sawmills during the same period fell from £5,6ot/,885 to £1.8(3.119. In contrast with this reduced output furnituremaTv'iiig establishments employed 2751 hands in 1927 as compared with 2002 in 1923, and the total value of their ouput increased from £1,028.144 to £1,413,054 in tlie same period. The controllers of the sawmilling industry have been impressed with a need for the introduction of the principles of rationalisation that are new being successfully applied in industry in older countries. The modern tendency is towards the concentrtion of the control oi a large number of businesses under a single admin .stratum, tlie effect being to render possible large economies in the pr daction and distribution of goods and consequently to admit of a lowering of prices. A rationalisation of the milling industry was, in effect, recommended by the Wheat Committee of the House of Representatives in its suggestion that the Department of Industries and Commerce should investigate the operations of the industry, with the object of ascertaining whether or not the cost of producing flour can. be reduce!. It would seem likely that it is to a considerable extent along the lines of an improvement of the methods of production and distribution that any reorganisation of secondary industry must run.