The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, June 22, 1912. OUR PROSPERITY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1060, 22 June 1912, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, June 22, 1912. OUR PROSPERITY.

During “Industries Week” iu many towns of New Zealand there are minor displays of goods manii" factored in this country. For a country, which is iu its manutacturing infancy, New Zealand displays a limited range of manufactures, some of which compare favourably with imported articles. It may be doubted, however, if it is true patriotism to regard small increases in manufacturing businesses as important to our prosperity. In the great world of commerce we are hopelessly undersold as far as manufactured goods are concerned. The New Zealander takes a lot of conviction before he believes that his own people make things as well and as cheaply as the foreigner, and there are no urgent reasons why New Zealand should abandon her business of supplying a foreign market with the finest possible produce to become a nation of factory hands. A misguided Auckland newspaper in puffing “Industries Week” mentioned that increase in certain manufacturing trades would “increase the prosperity of the Dominion.” It will, of course, do nothing of the kind. The tendency of manufactures in a young country, whose essential work is the direct production of foodstuffs and other raw materials grown in the soil, is to weaken the essential production. If New Zealand was producing even a twentieth of the stuff she is capable of producing and was flooding the markets of the world with what she could not eat herself, there would be some reason for the unnatural cry for manufactures. New Zealand no more wants to attract the rural population to the factory than Australia wants to attract Chinamen, When the necessity arrives for us to fill the country with smoke stacks, by all means get: the smoke stacks up as fast as possible, but while New Zealand’s whole available output is swallowed up like a flake of snow by the horde of eaters in the Old Laud, there seems to be no reason for us to dabble in the arts of manufacture. True, there are many types of goods that we can reasonably produce and with benefit to the people, but, while the country remains practically empty, it is our business to push on with the filling of it so that the maximum of production may be procured. There is bigger money for the nation iu sailing the things we can best produce, than in butting

into the manufacturing businesses in which we are foredoomed to failure. The Government is not partial to the attraction of men who are skilled in the manufacturing enterprises, and probably believe, as we believe, that we should not try to walk before we can crawl vigorously. The amazing thing about New Zealand is that she produces such an enormous quantity of raw materials with so lew people. She gets rid of every ounce of it at good prices. She could get rid of every ounce if every person in the country was engaged in the production ot raw materials. The increases in production are all the more marvellous when it is remembered that the population is all-but stationery, and goodness only knows what would happen if all hands and a couple of million others from overseas attacked the business that pays the country best. AH sorts of tariff walls are kept up for the foreign trader to stumble over, ostensibly with the idea ot helping the New Zealand manufacturer to produce things which are not wanted, merely because the foreigner has got more of them than be can do with. When the country is adequately tilled and New Zealand has fed London, it will be time enough to stick factory chimneys where trees used to be and to court a crop of labour troubles by concentrating all its people in towns and manufacturing villages. A point that is sometimes missed is that the constant withdrawal of men from the country to the towns will eventually make it impossible for the source otall maintenance — both of urban and rural people—the country, to carry the burden of populations which are in the great economic world, mere eaters. Every person who does not produce food direct from the soil is more or less a leaner on the man who delves. It is the business of a young country to increase the number of primal delvers, and the Government which concentrates its genius on this matter is the Gdverumeut that will achieve the best results. If the Government gave up the self advertising business and its race for place, said no word to anybody and worked solely to settle the laud, they would earu the respect and veneration ot the whole country. We don’t want factories, we want fields. We don’t want waste places, we want farms, we want farmers. And the most important “made in New Zealand” product is children, who represent an industry that is not as fashionable as it ought to be.