Industrial Progress

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 28, 26 April 1927, Page 8

Industrial Progress

Auckland's Mills & Factories

The wheels of industry are turning busily in Auckland, which has become the foremost manufacturing centre of New Zealand, but it is doubtful if the doctrine, preference to New Zealand-made goods, is receiving here, or elsewhere, the consideration to which it is entitled. Back to the earliest days of settlement go the traditions of Auckland’s industries. A primitive flourmill, at an early settlement, a sawmill of a recent type, or the old Aberdeen Mining Company’s smelting works on Kawau —these could be numbered among the first industrial ventures. But now the racket of busy mills is abroad throughout the land. It is a clatter relentless and unceasing, and in the prosperity of Auckland and the Auckland Province it has been a factor of material importance. INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP

Since the drift of population from the South first elevated Auckland to top place among New Zealand cities, industrial plants have been a stimulus to development. The sequence of Government statistics reveals that industrial expansion has consistently kept pace with the increase in the population. When Auckland had aquarter of the people of the Dominion, it had one-quarter of the industries. Now it possesses a third of the Dominion’s people, and its manufactures are a corresponding fraction of the whole. But many believe Auckland should develop its industries still more, and in this the question of preference arises. Apart altogether from protection and preferential tariffs—those are matters for statesmen to determine —New Zealand can assist their enterprising countrymen by purchasing New Zealand-made goods. New Zealand woollen products are acknowledged to be of unimpeachable quality. It may surprise many to learn that outside New Zealand similar approval is conceded to other New Zealand products. CURB ON ENTERPRISE Nevertheless rival products continue to be imported. How these unnecessary importations may curb the enterprise of New Zealand manufacturers in general, and those of Auckland in particular, is illustrated in any local industries selected at random. In many cases the balance in favour of the Dominion manufacturer serves to emphasise the satisfactory nature of his product, and shows that there is little necessity for any importation of the goods he produces. In a given year New Zealand produced soap to the value of £317,392. The soap imported in the same year cost the country £93,927, and robbed local manufacturers of business worth that amount. The loss in wages to local workers and the amount clipped from their spending power, becomes automatically evident. Right throughout the long list of

New Zealand industries —practically all of which have a local application —the figures are equally arresting. New Zealand jam manufacturers, producing jam and jellies worth £185.404. were well up on importations (£26,701). In candlemaking, also. New Zealand was well up—£117.292 against £11.779. while local cement works virtually held a monopoly, £965,997 against £12,189. In the great wool and boot and shoe manufacturing businesses, however, home products and importations are more evenly balanced. The recognised quality of New Zealand lines in these

manufactures, in which Auckland has important interests, suggests that the swing should be decisively in New Zealand’s favour. ACTIVE PROPAGANDISTS All the questions introduced by a study of local industries are under close observation of the Auckland Industrial Association and the New Zea-land-made Preference League, which have issued statements showing the value to the country of thriving factories and busy mills. The total number of people engaged in New Zealand factories rose from 60,335 in 1906 to 258.406 in 1925, and Auckland, as an \industrial centre, leads the way easily. Here there are glass works, foundries, woollen mills, carpet mills, footwear factories, fer-' tiliser works, and dozens of other active concerns. Altogether there are 1,339 mills of factories in the Auckland Province. They keep 27,000 people in employment, pay out £5,300,000 in their year’s wages, and produce goods to the total value of close on £30,000,000.