WHY IMPORTED GOODS?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 780, 28 September 1929, Page 7

WHY IMPORTED GOODS?

A CURE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT GIVE NEW ZEALANDERS THE WORK New Zealand has 250.000 homes and imports an avenge of one million pounds’ worth of goods every week. That means £3 10s spent on imported goods by each home every week in the year. If the odd ten shillings a week were spent on the products of our own workers it would find full employment for 16.000 more New Zealanders; but even half-a-crown a week from each householder will mean steady jobs for 4,000 mor* workers. j Unemployment is the most serious problem which our politicians of today have to face, and the spectre of ablebodied men marching in processions to demand work haunts our public men. Many of these unemployed men are skilled workers who cannot find I work because we will not buy the goods they have beeu trained to pro ! duce. The average number of per- ■ sons to each home iu the Dominion is five, and each household spends the greatest portion of its money in buying imported goods, many of which | could be made here. The imported wares give only a minimum amour • of employment to a. few wharf work ers and warehousemen; our own manufactures give employment in a doze:’ different directions. It is sending our manufacturing work outside our country which keeps our own workers poor and idle, and conditions cannot improve while we deliberately prefer to keep the factories of other countries busy filling our orders and allow our own manufacturing plants to languish in semi-idleness. START THE SNOWBALL | It does not matter how small the I purchase; money spent on outside goods mcaus money lost to the coun- ! try; what we spend on our homemade products stays here to circulate over and over again. The snowball effect of spending our money on New Zealand-made goods is immeasurable and everyone benefits. If the house wife buys a tin of jam she is probably unconcerned whether it is imported or locally-made. If her shilling goes to buy African jam most of it reaches . the fruitgrowers and Kaffir-employed jam-makers there. Rut that shilling spent on New' Zealand-mado jam goes 'to buy our fruit-farmers’ crops; provides work in our preserving factor • ies; employs tinsmiths to make the tins; timber-workers to provide cases; sugar-workers to produce the sugar—and so the snowball grows. The same thing applies to the hundred and one • little items which go to make up our weekly spending accounts. A cake of soap or a cake of chocolate; a packet of candles or a tin of tobacco; a pair of socks or a pair of blankets; a pair of boots or a pair of trousers. Food, clothing, furniture; luxuries and necessities; by buying what our work ers make we must keep them busy. Just a shilling a week from each man, woman and child In New Zealand spent on goods made by New Zealand workers, in preference to articles made in foreign or overseas countries, would pay an average wage of £4 10s a week to 8,000 more New Zealand workers. That would mean absorbing all our unemploj*ed workers, skilled and unskilled. It would mean making openings for our sons and daughters to learn useful and productive trades. It would make all the difference between the depression, stagnation and shortage of money which now prevails, and the prosperity, happiness, and wealth for all which that increased spending power would bring to a small country like this. The solution of the unemployment problem does not rest with our local bodies or our national Government. It lies in the bauds of every purchaser jof goods. The real employer of every worker is the person who buys his products or pays for his services. We I cannot have it both ways; and while ! we prefer giving out our work to producers of other countries we are keepi ing our own workers out of empioyj ment. When we spend a shilling on foreign goods, we get the goods and 1 the foreign workers get our shilling. When we spend it on New Zealandmade goods we still get the goods and ' New Zealand workers get the shilling. Multiply this a million-fold and see the , wonderful effect it must have on our j general j>rospcrity. P.A.