“COME, FEATHER YOUR NEST!”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 768, 14 September 1929, Page 7

“COME, FEATHER YOUR NEST!”

IDLE FACTORIES MEAN BUSY DOSS HOUSES ASK FOR N.Z.-MADE GOODS Why is it that while last year we exported over £11,000,000 worth of goods more than we imported. and the volume of free and fixed cash deposits in our banks is much greater now than ever before in the history of New Zealand, that we find a continuance of unemployment and a prevailing complaint of a country-wide ‘'shortage of money*'? The trouble is that we hare been busy feathering the nests of other countries by sending our orders to them instead of executing them ourselves. and sending our work overseas while our own workers were drifting into idleness. When we stop buying from outsiders who will not buy from us, and keep every shilling we can In New Zealand to provide employment for our own workers, then we will be feathering our own nests instead of those of others, and our own skilled workers will not stand shivering and idle on our waterfronts watching goods which they should be making for us being dumped here at the rate of nearly a million pounds’ worth a week. Last week a non-party deputation of Auckland members waited ou the Prime Minister asking for a Government grant for a doss-house organised here by a private charity, whose funds are near exhaustion, otherwise the establishment would be compelled to close down. “NOT A NICE THING*' One of the spokesmen remarked to the head of the Government that it was not a nice thing to be asking for, and Sir Joseph Ward replied that it was not at all nice, and he did not like it. But to a person who studies the cold facts and is not blinded by prejudice or economic bias it is obvious that the closed doors of our factories and manufacturing plants must mean opening the doors of doss houses and soup kitchens. Our workers cannot support themselves and their dependants if they cannot sell their labour or their products, and our open door to the goods of outside countries means a closed door for our own producing plants. We cannot have it both ways, and while we send our work to be done outside our workers must remain unemployed or semi-idle. Last year the men and youths working in our registered industrial establishments were paid £234,637 less in wages than in the previous year; the number of hands employed had decreased, and the amount of “short-time” worked had increased enormously. Why? Not because “times were bad” or there was “no money about,” because the total cash deposits iu our commercial banks alone increased from 45 millions in 1927 to 55 millions iu 1929. WHY MONEY LIES IDLE Five years ago the amount of money on fixed deposit in our trading banks was £18,597.130; last year it had swollen to «£ 29,605,752, and one wonders in amazement why that “frozen wealth” has not been used as capital to be invested in the production of more and more wealth. Why is it not employed straight away to open up land for settlement and to erect new* industrial plants or extend existing establishments, employing our own labour, using our own materials, producing our own finished goods and fiDding openings for our boys to carry on the good work of adding to the wealth of their country? Directors of banks and investment houses, and the head of our Department of Industries and Commerce supply the answer. There is no industrial security offering for safe investment, and those who hold tlie money are timid and distrustful. So unless that money now' tied up on fixed deposit is not watched it will find its way abroad to pay for another orgy of imports, instead of being applied to reproductive purposes here. BAD TRADE BALANCES Overseas trading is essential in order to exchange our surplus goods for those we cannot make ourselves and to pay off our external debt. But when a country takes as little from us as possible and dumps as much as possible back, it is bad business for us, as it piles up a debt to outsiders which must be paid. Iu the last four years we have im ported £35,169,436 worth of goods from Uncle Sam, and he has taken £1,5.109,396 worth from us. A bad balance of trade which has put us over 20 millions in his debt in four years, and he has recently raised his tariff wall still higher to exclude our farmers’ products, while w'e still leave ourselves wide open to absorb his surplus manufactured goods. The only way to feather our own nest, and keep our own workers and their families snug and warm, is by national action and retaliation, which will safeguard them effectively. The other way which is immediately effective is by individual action, with every patriotic New Zealander insisting on being supplied with New Zeai land-made goods every time. Keep our factories busy and i doss-houses idle. WELL-MERITED POPULARITY “WEET-BIX,” THE ORIGINAL MALTED WHEAT BISCUIT | When first introduced to the general public some years ago, this tasty and j highly nutritious biscuit immediately i met with an instantaneous and general I demand —a demand which has coni stantly increased. Extra factories have j been added, but these today are workj ing at full pressure to cope with this ! ever-growing demand. Weet-Bix stands high today in public | favour, but thi3 popularity has only | been won by the consistent goodness of | the biscuit, its flavour, its “more-lab” ! taste and high nourishment value. Of course, imitators have sprung up—and I 1 will spring up-—but there’s only one Weet-Bix, the original malted wheat biscuit, the favourite with everybody, the wheat biscuit everyone buys, i By a generous free sample scheme, ( readers may try Weet-Bix today at the | expense of the manufacturers. Just > send your name and address with three | penny stamps to cover postage to ! Grain Products Co., 62 Kandolph | Street, Auckland, who will send you | a generous sample, together with fullest j details of a big coupon gift scheme.