AN INSPIRING SLOGAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 868, 11 January 1930, Page 5

AN INSPIRING SLOGAN

PRIME MINISTER S MESSAGE SUPPORT OUR N.Z. WORKERS In a New Year’s message broad cast from Station 2YA Wellington. Sir Joseph Ward struck the right note for the cure of unemployment and distress by giving a national slogan for 1930: ‘ BUY NEW ZEALAND-MADE GOODS-” With that as a fixed policy for every citizen, a prosperous year is assured. The Prime Minister admitted that Cabinet had “spent many worrying hours over the problem of unemployment.” and that all the Government could do to alleviate the evil “had been but temporary." it has alwuj s been pointed out here that the only permanent way to lift the shadow and banish the spectre of enforced idleness for our skilled workers is to give our productive industries the fullest opportunity of developing to the limit of their powers. PALLATIVES OR CURE Relief works aud unproductive enterprises, unemployment insurance, j doles and charitable aid are all but pallatives and soothing poultices which do not touch the seat of the evil. The festive season brought a welcome burst of productive activity, but. many are already fearing that a reaction will follow. The chairman of the relief committee of the Charitable Aid Board stated on Thursday that applicants for relief at the first meeting this year showed an increase of 80 per cent, over the last meeting in the Old Year, and he feared a recurrence of much poverty and distress in the City. The whole trouble is that instead of manufacturing wealth we are manufacturing paupers by importing goods which our own idle workers could produce, and almost every New Zealand manufacturing industry is languishing for want of customers. It is the ordinary citizen, his wife i and family who provide the wages for the industrial worker’s pay envelope week by week. If they refuse to buy his goods and send their work out of the country, they are throwing a fellow’ citizen out of a job. If only each family would spend 2s 6d a week on products of New Zealand workers, which they now spend on goods made abroad, that would provide good wages for every worker now unemployed! % What family is there that is not will-* ing to divert half-a-crown a week now spent on imported goods and use it to cure the curse of unemployment? That w’ould not be an act of charity. Our idle industrialists hate the idea of charity—they want work, and pound for pound and shilling for shilling they will supply us with better value than any worker abroad. A PERSONAL OBLIGATION As Sir Joseph Ward suggests, it is a solemn obligation on every true citizen of the Dominion to “remember that goodwill to our fellows and to the less fortunate citizens w’ill bring happiness not only to them, but more so to ourselves.” The highest duty for people of all classes in the community is helping others to develop the prosperity of the country. Better business can only come by increasing the wealth of the country and adding to the spending power of our workers. The spending power of our industrial workers is determined by the amount of wealth they have the opportunity of producing. When their goods are turned down in favour of those made by outsiders, production slumps and our breadwinners' purchasing power drops.. Not only he and his family, but all the business people suffer. Then it is that our shopkeepers and business firms begin to complain that “there is no money about,’* or that “business is dead.’* The simple way to keep money plentiful is to keep it in the country in-# stead of sending it away for the purchase of outside goods, and business will be brisk and lively when our factory emplo3’ees are busy. Keep them busy by demanding New Zealand-made Goods.