Industrial Possibilities

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 892, 8 February 1930, Page 11

Industrial Possibilities

IMMIGRANTS ARE AN ASSET What Expansion Means to Auckland r (Written for THE SUN) NEARLY fifty million pounds worth of orders for goods were sent abroad last year. The transfer of 10 per cent, of these orders to New Zealand manufacturers would have absorbed all the available skilled labour in the country and would have ensured work for most of the casual labour now unemployed.

Three years ago the Coates Government yielded to an agitation against immigration, and reduced to negligible proportions the grants of reduced passages to intending immigrants. In a few instances the assisted immigrants were not of the right type and the selection might have been more discriminating. Moreover, there was misrepresentation occasionally on the part of the immigrants themselves, merely to secure a trip to New Zealand. A Remuera woman who thought she was getting a cook discovered that the new arrival had got past Sir James Parr’s scrutiny simply by describing herself as a cook. Her real profession was that of a coffin trimmer—and her cooking was calculated to provide her with the job for which she had been trained. But in the main, the assisted immigrants "were good, sturdy Britons of a type to adapt themselves to life in New Zealand. Some brought capital and their arrival stimulated the demand for dwellings, furniture, clothing and household supplies. This in turn helped to make the work that provided them with a livelihood in the country of their adoption. In short, the immigrant of good character was a potential wealth producer and an asset to the country, and not a liability. A PERSISTENT FALLACY

The idea that his presence contributes to unemployment is a stupid fallacy. Back of the idea is the theory that too many workers result in unemployment. Just the opposite is true. The more workers, the more machinery, the greater the production, the greater the accumulation of wealth, the greater the consumption—with prosperity and employment for everyone.

When the weavers of Lancashire 150 years ago celebrated the introduction

of spinning machinery with a riot, it was because they thought it would cause a surplus of workers. Since then the machinery employed in the production of wealth has multiplied a thousand-fold; the population of England has increased five times, that of North America forty times —and production still lags behind the world’s needs.

If a surplus of workers caused unemployment, the remedy would be to export the surplus. Great Britain and Ireland have exported sufficient population to stock two continents —and today England has more unemployed than at any previous period in her history. Germany lost countless thousands of her population to North America before she discovered that by industrialisation she could maintain them all in comfort and prosperity at home—and unemployment in Germany is now insignificant. Italy has made the same discovery. Italian emigration has diminished from a river to a trickle. Italy is entering on a new era of prosperity. Neither Germany nor Italy could keep her people at home by handing millions of pounds worth of orders to foreign countries for the greater portion of the manufactured goods required by their own people: it is left to countries like Britain and New Zealand to keep foreign workers employed regardless of the needs of their own. THE MINISTRY OF INDUSTRIES The Prime Minister from his sick bed issued a New Year’s message recommending the public to support New Zealand industries, and while one is grateful for these few kind words, it would be more to the point if the Government practised what Sir Joseph Ward now preaches. The Government is a large importer and a patron of importers, and if it supported local industry, it would require

less lean money for relief works. For half a century Sir Joseph Ward has been identified with the public life of the country. In his private capacity he has been associated with the export of agricultural products. With his political career drawing to a close, he makes the belated avowal that increased industrial production is essential to the growth and prosperity of the country. in forming liis' Ministry, he put Mr. Cobbe in charge of industries. The latter took the portfolio over from Mr. Downie Stews.rt. who revised the tariff in 1927, and was so afraid of offending the farmer, and the importer, that lie pleased nobody and his tariff was described by the head of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Association as “rotten.” Mr. Cobbe is a cautious farmer, with a farmer’s outlook on the tariff. He took a year to study the industrial question and he addressed himself to the job with sincerity and earnestness. He travelled all over the country personally investigating the conditions and output of factory production, but before he had time or opportunity to make use of the knowledge acquired, the Industries Department was transferred to Mr. J. B. Donald, who as the result of another of Sir Joseph Ward’s whims was divested of the position of P.M.G. just as he had got interested in Post Office administration. The situation is almost tragic. While a sick man wlio has completely lost his grip is playing “general post” with his Ministers, and making contradictory statements because he forgets today what Cabinet decided yesterday, a cloud of depression is settling down on the country. Business is bad, unemployment is rife, and the growth of population is almost stationary. There is no need for it. Our national resources are greater than ever, and prompt, energetic action by a statesman who was seized of the position could effect a transformation. NEW METHODS NEEDED

The greatest need of the Dominion today is a Department of Industries and Commerce which will do as much for the industrial producer as the Department of Agriculture has done for the farmer.

The Department of Agriculture established by Seddon, set out on the assumption that the farmer was a helplessly incompetent fool, who with guidance, instruction and finance could be converted into an efficient, self-reliant producer and an example to the world. The condition of the agricultural industry today is a monument to the achievements of the Government in this direction. Tlie Government has spent millions in teaching the farmer his business. An army of officials and instructors gives him expert advice; he has the benefit of railway and other concessions; he can call on the State for finance; he

is fully protected from outside competition: thousands are spent to create controlling authorities which supervise the grading, export and marketing of his products, and everything possible is done to ensure him a safe and certain reward for his labours. Practically the only thing the Government cannot do is to , restrain the incurable optimism which leads him to pay too much for a farm —a folly which results in the benevolence of the State being capitalised and added to the cost of the property. But what of the industrial producer? He is left to shift for himself in a hard, cold world of suspicion and hostility. No sympathetic Government official conies along to help him improve his methods; to lay out his plant to tlie best advantage; to provide him with capital or to find customers to buy the product. On the contrary, the visit of a departmental officer is more likely to be the prelude to a prosecution for an alleged breach of the Factories Act or an industrial award. It is vitally important that the whole attitude of the Government toward the industrial producer should be revised. It is not merely a matter of trying to secure to him his home market, by increased duties on imports. HOW IT CAN BE DONE The time has come when the Department of Industries must take the industrial producer in hand and help him to greater efficiency, usefulness and productivity. Most of our industries in New Zealand began as oneman concerns. A large confectionery and biscuit works, with a Dominionwide connection, began in the kitchen of the original proprietor; several of our biggest boot factories had their beginning in small shops, with a sign in the window, “Repairs Neatly Executed.” The largest iron works grew out of a blacksmith’s forge, and their methods today frequently suggest that the growth of the community has had more to do with their present output than their own knowledge of their business. To take a typical example: The writer recently went over a large factory. The plant is housed in an old wooden building like a rabbit warren. Apart from the danger of fire, an efficient lay-out of the expensive machines employed is impossible; there can be no effective co-ordination of processes, and the packing department and marketing methods are in keeping -with the rest of the outfit. Yet the business is a good one and the proprietors profess to be satisfied. If the Department of Industries would do as much for these people as the Agricultural Department does for the farmers an industrial expert would tactfully offer suggestions as to how this plant, could be modern-

ised. the Advances Department would provide money at 5i per cent, for a new factory, and take a mortgage debenture over the property as security. The railways would carry the raw material at low rates; a sales expert would supply the fullest information as to where an increased output could be disposed of. The only danger might be that the offer of all this help, which the farmer takes for granted, would kill the industrialist from shock! UAKIXG AI CKI. A XT) GROW Yet a policy of this nature is only common sense. To provide a man with a farm involves a capital inve-t----ment. on an average, of at least iiS.OeO. One-third of that sum invested in industry is sufficient to provide a nan with a wage which makes him as well off as the occupier of a oneman farm. That is the true explana:ion of why urban population grows faster than rural population. Quarts of ink have been used in writing abou the “drift to the towns’* by persons who have never discovered this fact. In ten years the population of Auckland metropolitan area has increased by less than 25 per cent. On the coast of Florida there is a town called Miami, about the size of Auckland, which has increased its population fivefold, while we have been adding about a fourth. A few years ago investors who based their plans on the relatively rapid growth of Auckland prior to 1925. and without considering the possibility of a slump and the stoppage of assisted immigration laid out suburban extensions and spent thousands of pounds on roads, footpaths. water supply, drainage, etc. The grass is now growing over those expensive roads, and cows might just as well be turned back on to the land. Unless the Government alters its policy in the matter of industrial production, another ten years will pass before these sections will he required for homes. No one in business needs to be told what it would mean if the populatiou of Auckland could be increased by 50 per cent, in a decade, instead of by 25 per cent. It could be brought about by an expansion of industrial production, plus a revival of assisted immigration, but there is no other way. The addition of a few thousand dairy farmers to the population of the province, however welcome and desirable. will make but little difference to the growth of homes on Orakei. Glendowie or Tamaki subdivisions, but the spending of our money in New Zealand instead of in other countries will make all the difference in the world. PETER SIMPLE