OUR BUSINESS BAROMETER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1052, 16 August 1930, Page 7

OUR BUSINESS BAROMETER

kaise local production * CURE FOR DEPRESSION

I It is unanimously agreed by all j authorities that the return of prosperity to New Zealand and the dispersal of the prespnt temporary depression can only be secured py an increased production of wealth. The slump in the prices of foodstuffs and raw materials overseas has greatly reduced our national income, so we must reduce our expenditure on foreign goods and speed up the output of wealth from our own labours. While other countries hare been I busy during the post-war period ex- | paading and reconstituting their ! industries, we in New Zealand have ! been slipping back until our industrial production has become almost stationary. The war gave a great impetus to local production, but instead of that stimulus being continued during the peace period to provide profitable employment for those who returned from the battlefields, our industries drifted Into the doldrums, while foreign countries again began to dump their surplus products here in ever-increasing Quantities, and none of the industrial j advantages gained by our isolation j during the war became permanent j factors in adding to the wealth of the I country. LOCAL AND FOREIGN GOODS At the present time our buyers have to take the responsibility of saying where their orders for goods shall be placed, aud whether they shall be made by our local workers or outsidera. If we continue to ignore the paramount claims of our fellow-work-ers, and give the employment they so sorely need to outsiders, we are deliberately assisting the continuance of the depression that prevails, increasing the evils of unemployment, and keeping the country impoverished for the benefit of other countries, most of j which take as little as possible from , us, and continue to raise their tariff • barriers against our products while dumping their own goods here for ail they are worth.

BRITISH OR FOREIGN The new tariff at present before Parliament certainly raises the tariff walls higher against foreign goods arriving here, but when goods which are “50 —50,” foreign and British, are allowed to come Ina 3 “British made” our preference is a very half-hearted kind of one, and the foreign worker «hares it equally with the British. It is a very poor consolation for our unemployed workers to be told that they are shut out of their factories, foundries, and workshops in order that foreigners may be kept busy. At the present time our workers are i suffering from too much local charity ; and not enough local patriotism in the form of orders for their goods. Our j able-bodied and trained artisans, and j the unskilled workers who assist ! them, are not fond of seeking for j charity so that their dependants may j not lack the bare necessities of life. They would sooner be productive and i self-reliant industrialists, adding their \ quota to the wealth of the country and helping to enrich it by producing to j their utmost capacity. OUR SUPERIOR PRODUCTS The strange preference shown by some people for the products of foreign workers is mostly due to ignorance or groundless prejudice. The statement has often been made on this page, that, penny for penny, and pound for pound, the products of our workers will give the buyer better value than any imported. Recent scientific research and exhaustive tests of leather and footwear made in New Zealand by our own workers from our local materials prove conclusively the truth I of this contentiou, and what applies i to the products of this industry will fit 1 other products from our up-to-date j factories, where the best of materials ; are fashioned into finished goods by j our own workers under healthy and I humane conditions. Who knows under what sort of i living and sanitary conditions many of the foreign products which compete with those produced here are turned out? But few countries have the same high standard of living among the workers as we have here, and in v *ry few are there the same strict and sanitary Factory Acts, puro foods regulations, and hygienic conditions for the workers. LEATHER TRADE TESTS . ff) e scientific aiid technical tests for j eather aud footwear which were con- I heted by a qualified investigator j Proved that the leather produced by \ a * tanners from good New Zea- ; ana-grown hides was not quite so 1 in a Pl>earance, but is far and lon eer wearing. It is ueaitiuer because in one hour’s imlrmai ° a exact 'y similar samples of » n **, * m P°rted leathers, it was Mthat the local leathers absorbed ZT . ? er ceut - of water, while the —. d le athers soaked up 21 per —That is a most important proleather these wet days, and «ttre r much to the health of the ala!? ac testa of wear the results favoured the local product. Jgenty-two pairs of boots were soled JJJ® ‘ oc al leather on one foot and irnw , on the other. The wearing test ■*»ed that, with 2S pairs, the New and leather was the better wear pg; with 12 pairs, the imported wora w hile with 32 pairs the wear *■* about even. tests should go far to re ~ the prejudice against local wli . r *' and destroy the myth **** imported leather is much •kperior. IBtftn 11 ?°y buy locally-made goods i Iheir : OW , that our manufacturers and the ha ° rkers are anxious to give you "■our „ St va * ue they possibly can for ■foodwm° ne> ’.’ as wlthout our buyers’ sh„* an< * su PPort they would have Dublin t l !, our factories and leave the ■or a ti tQ ae P er id entirely on outsiders "upp.ies. Already the public is • heirv D f'n not on, y to realise its duty tei» j, ¥orker8 ’ and the sound ‘*r"bv l money in the coun/•XvwJ , , '-' ns our own workers em-ka-1 a ' so that for honest value • a« *'" rkma nship ■xvgs are beet h.jjjrl.