OUR INDUSTRIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 992, 7 June 1930, Page 6

OUR INDUSTRIES

Woman’s Aid in Industry SHOPPING FOR PROSPERITY The Wise Way to Buy WHILE most of the work of producing the wealth of the country on which our prosperity and progress depend is in the hands of men, modern woman is now playing a more important part in our industries than she did a generation ago, and figures largely in our productive work where a keen eye and nimble fingers are called for. But it is as the buyer for the family that the loyal woman of New Zealand can play a vital part in our industrial life.

Without the goodwill and practical support of our shopperfe our manufacturers and their skilled* workers are so heavily handicapped that industry becomes stagnant, factories are partially idle, and the workers laid off, or -working on part time, while a flood of imports pours into the country causing unemployment and impoverishment. To the shopper who is prejudiced or indifferent it may appear to matter very little whether the family income is spent on buying imported or home-made goods, but to the workers in our industries it is a matter of life and death whether they can find a local market here for their products, or whether those industries must languish and close down. Our statesmen and politicans can do much to stimulate and safeguard our own industries, but their very existence depends on the support given them by our own people when they are buying, and one in every four of our family breadwinners is dependent on our manufacturing industries for his livelihood and his ability to maintain his family.

Our workers enjoy a high standard of living—one of the highest in the world —and all our women and children share in that benefit. The greatest handicap our Industrial workers have to meet is competition with outside goods, many of which are produced by workers on a very low standard of living, and manufactured under hours, wages, and conditions of labour which would never be tolerated here. By purchasing the often inferior products

of these outside workers, our buyers are taking that work away from our own skilled producers and reducing their earnings. They become a burden on the community instead of one of the country’s finest assets.

Even when by buying products made by sweated or iow-iiving labour in other lands a small saving is effected, the whole of the wages for the making of those goods has been lost to our workers here, and when they are unemployed that loss has to be made up by relief work and charitable aid. So that the “saving” is really mythical and more than balanced by the ioss on the other side in the poverty and distress caused by sending work out of the country which could and should be done by our own workers, if only our buyers of goods would shop wisely and well.

Our local manufacturers are out to please our local buyers and meet their every taste and requirement. If you can find any fault with their goods tell the shopkeeper so, or tell the manufacturers yourself. They will be more than grateful if you point out any shortcomings or faults in their goods. They and their workers must please you or get out of business for want of customers, and they must supply what the public wants. "When their goods please, you tell your friends so, and so so help the industrial snowball to grow, adding to the wealth of the country and keeping our workers busy, prosperous, and contented.

The standard set for manufacturing in New Zealand is very high in every branch of production. Our factories are controlled under very rigid restrictions safeguarding the health and wellbeing of the employees. There ..re strigent laws controlling the use of adulterants and preventing wrongful description of manufactured goods. If you buy a New Zealand woollen article, vou know that it is pure new wool, ar.d not a mixture containing “dead” wool, shoddy, or vegetable fibre. An article of New Zealand leather is real leather, and the buyer need have no fear of any product produced by any responsible local manufacturer, but can rest fully assured that she is being supplied with a genuine article of honest value, good workmanship and the best materials. In the production of all foods and drugs the same sharp supervision of the materials, processes, and hygienic conditions is even more strictly exercised. Not only are our manufacturing establishments open at all times to the local authorities and Government inspectors, but to visitors and buyers, and a walk through them is a liberal education in the productive capacity of our industrialists in producing our own manufactured wealth for us instead of importing it from overseas and depleting our business prosperity. None of our manufacturing firms are making big profits out of their works or their workers, and shilling for shilling they give you the best value for your money, which you know stays in the country at a time when every shilling available for wages is sorely needed. By all our good housewives combining to push the buying of New Zealand goods, our manufacturers would be able to keep all machinery going at top speed and reduce the cost of production, and the more local goods our shoppers buy the cheaper they will become.

Many of our youth are looking forward to the day when they will be able to learn a useful productive trade, or render skilled service in our own industries, and the more our industries grow the greater will be the openings for the coming generation to play their part in making for us the goods we require in our home and productive life.

By buying wisely and loyally our shopper can give business in New Zealand a big boost and drive away the clouds of depression and unemployment which now overshadow us.

Tring in the sunshine of prosper!.y by demanding New Zealand goods.