NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 774, 21 September 1929, Page 7

NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES

FLOODED OUT BY IMPORTS HOME PRODUCTION NEEDED The annual report of the Department of Industrie# and Commerce shows that while commerce was brisk last year our Industries were in a languishing state; our factories employed nearly 1,000 less breadwinners, with nearly £250,000 less wages paid, and many of the workers employed were on short time. The ailments of our home Industries are due solely to our own products being swamped by a flood of Imports, which buyers prefer to the goods made by our own workers. In spite of a record favourable balance in our external trade last year, •when we exported over £11,000,000 more than we imported, our local industries are still in a very sick state with unemployment and poverty rife. The returns from our record balance of trade are locked up in th& banks, as potential investors--will -nob trust their capital in industrial- de' velopment while our industries give 30 security for investment. In order that our established industries may rccorer and expand, and to induce the starting of new industries to increase our production of wealth, it is essential that a scientific policy of safeguarding both existing and potential industries is established without delay. To secure immediate relief through increased consumption of our home products a patriotic policy of preference for home-made goods should be resolved on by every local purchaser. The reason our plain average citizen In the picture looks ao sick is that he is still suffering from the importing fever, and industrial anaemia has followed. He is not producing the goods which ; mean Internal prosperity and Industrial progress. He is not ' cresting the wealth which Is the life blood of the nation, and, instead of exerting himself to nourish himself, he has been relying on outside support which hat been sapping his strength and vitality. THE IMPORTING FEVER In 1920 he Imported £01,600,000 worth of goods, and naturally found himself in a terrible slump for five years; but in 1925 his temperature chart Bhowed that the importation germ had run up to £52,500,000 again, and for the last decade his average cost for the importing craze has been about a million pounds a week. Out of every five of New Zealand’s breadwinners one is a farming producer of wealth, and one a manufacturing producer. The other three are either importers, exporters, land arid financial agents, professional men, public Servants, or carriers, etc., and are not direct producers of wealth, but constant consumers. Something must be done to change our occupational ratios by a greater internal production from both the land and manufacturing pro cesses. MILLIONS ON MILLIONS In a country like this, with all our production of wool, skins and hides, we cannot clothe ourselves or shoe turselves without importing ten mil lion pounds’ worth of wearing apparel, loots, hats, caps, etc., a year from outside countries. That is the value of those goods in the country of origin. Then we send abroad to buy another ten millions’ worth of machinery, hardwear and metals manufactured or unmanufactured. That is why our loundrles and engineering shops are idle, and our youths cannot find openings in productive employment. No . wonder that gentleman on the left j looks sick. He buys two million j l>ounds’ worth of paper, books and sta- I ’.ionery from abroad, and foreign ■ timber exploiters “sting him" for 1 another million a year. All these are i contributing causes to our national - industrial sickness. We are busy j sending orders abroad for goods ; which can be made better and cheaper here by our own workers, from our jwn materials, and we keep workers la foreign countries busy while our >wn axe starving. For years past we have been indulging in an orgy of overconsumption of imported goods and :>n that account the country is feeling sick at the present time. It Is time New Zealand bestirred Itself and set to work In grim earnest on a self-reliant policy of producing to satisfy our own needs to the fullest extent possible. cannot cure our industrial •tarvation by feeding ourselves On com mod It lea from outside. Fresh blood can only bo given to °ur Industries by an increased dofg* «* ttteir outpuL Bar OmhuUw Ww am QQfIMHBMMpSi StMMT IWU mMMM f* Hw BfkrtMftßmad goods and ■wars a certain return tt lndoetrla? health and wealth. P.A. LEMON PEEL FINE “OAK” PRODUCT that eggs are particularly ueap many housewives are induced th lnore cooking at home, and are nus again interested in lemon peel, j recently New Zealand-made k. .° n I >eei was absolutely unknown, « radua *ly Thompson and Hills, K "Oak’* people, have built up a i< ‘ >Uslne *« this line, it the housewife wants the lemon [chopped up ready for use, it can J? n Ught that in the convenient arnaii quarter-pound or half-pound packets of assorted orange, lemon and i-ron peel, under the “Oak" brand as Mlxe<i Peelpeople, however, prefer the °°t cut up, and for these the Jr*?' People put up the half-pound Packets of whole Candied Peel in } emon » lemon and orange, or mated lemon, orange and citron. All tnest, "Oak" products are guaranteed tiJh?® products are made of praccaily >y ew Zealand lemons, and a . hope in time to oid the use of even the small quanimported fruit. v ei * buying these cooking items j Housewife should remember that I help local industries by sped- i I V*ng Oak." |