Our Industries

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 968, 10 May 1930, Page 6

Our Industries

The Danger of Stagnation

Cultivate Economic Independence

THE constant urging's of prominent men to cultivate our local industries by buying the goods we manufacture ourselves, are warning signs that New Zealand is now facing another crisis in her economic development as a community of free people, far removed from the markets of the world, and with Britain the only place where our surplus products are not shut out by tariff walls. Our local industries are in a state of stagnation, and we can no longer continue a railsitting policy.

At the present time we are importing more goods per head of population than any other country in the world; the average expenditure of a family of three —husband, wife and child—is £IOO every year for imported goods, many of which we can make for ourselves. The time has arrived when we can no longer regard this peril with apathy and indifference, but must get to work and take our coats oil to produce for our own requirements instead of leaning on outsiders for our essential supplies. We all know our Parable of the Sower, and how some seed fell on good soil, but the weeds sprang up and choked it. In New Zealand our own industries which should provide tor our wants, have languished for the need of fostering, tending and wise safe guarding, and smothering weeds of foreign and exotic growth have sprung up to choke them. That is why our factory production is stagnant, and our own skilled operatives either unemployed or working short hours, finding their spending power dwindling through the shrinkage in their pay envelopes.

That is bad business for everybody in the community, and if that man and his wife and child now spending £IOO a year on outside goods would" each divert only half-a-crown a week to the buying of goods made here, it would mean about £25,000.000 a year more being spent among all classes of the community, and abundance of work for all. As our worthy Governor-General has been reminding us the wise farmer is one who secures the greatest possible return from his land by good husbandry. The good farmer hates the sight of weeds choking his pastures or crops, and gets busy to rid his property of the wateful pests. A wise people also develops its own resources and industries in preference to those of outsiders, and employs its own people rather than send the work out of the country. In 1929 We exported £12,000,000 worth more than we imported In the year ending March 31 last our imports actually exceeded our exports in value, and those who through prejudice or indifference give their patronage to outside goods and reject our own made, are keeping other countries busy and injuring their own. We

cannot have it both ways; and •we encourage the growth of imported weeds we cannot reap the harvest ot our own industry and enterprise ta. less we voluntarily call a halt to thfr importing craze, and shut out tfea goods which are strangling our ova industries by unfair competition, the supply will be cut off by outside pressure, as in the case of Australia, and we will be forced to fall back on our own productive powers instead leaning on outsiders. The Dominion is drifting into the position of a person who is living beyond his income, and sooner or later that means a serious day of reckoning. <J. ur national income is merely the amount of wealth we produce by our labour, and if that amount is not sufficient to provide for our needs, we must set to work for a greater production, or reduce our standard of living to meet the fall in our national earning capacity. By building up our :n;uiufa»turu» industries we are establishing n e w and permanent sources of added wealth, using more and more of our own materials, and employing more and more of our own labour. We seem, somehow, to lose sight of the very obvious fact that those who convert a few shillings’ worth of wool and hides into as many pounds’ worth of clothes and footwear, are adding their share to the wealth of the community just as those do who produce the wool, skins and hides. The most profitable means of adding to our depleted national income, and dispersing the business depression, and gloom of enforced Idleness now prevailing, is by encouraging our manufactures and stimulating local industrialists in preference to outsiders. Get off the fence and cultivate our own industrial products by demanding the good goods made in our own country by our own workers.