The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1920. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 April 1920, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1920. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.

Economic conditions render it essential that the producers of the Dominion shall no longer be content with merely selling primary commodities. Although the war inflated prices, it imposed heavy financial responsibilities on the community which must be met by taxation; the price of land has risen very considerably; the cost of living is soaring persistently; transport freights on land and sea have reached an abnormally high level and wages have advanced in sympathy with the upward trend of the cost of living. Under such circumstances, and in view of the advanced prices of all imports the moral to be drawn is obviously that the Dominion can no longer continue to lie content with the output of its primary products, but must enter upon the business of manufacturing so that producers may get the full benefit of their capital and enterprise, and the people be supplied at first hand with goods they urgently need. The development and expansion of secondary industries will help to a large extent to solve some of the problems facing this country, and will afford employment for large numbers of those immigrants that are expected to settle in the Dominion. Never have conditions been so favorable, or the outlook for new industries so promising as at the present time, especially in connection with manufacuring the by-products from the primary industries. An instance in point is the woollen industry. During the last ten years there has been no increase in the number of woollen mills in New Zealand, though the number of employees in the ten mills rose by twenty per cent. "Wool is the important product of the Dominion. In 1915 the quantity exported amounted to 208,908,1181b5, and the quantity purchased by local mills was 6,628,0191b5, so that over two hundred and two million pounds weight of wool was sent out of the country, its transport involving heavy shipping freights, to which has to be added the cost of manufacture at British mills,

a still heavier return freight 011 the woollen goods and a customs tariff of twenty per cent, ad valorem, and the various profits imposed before the dress goods reach the consumer in New Zealand. When there was so great a discrepancy between the wages paid at the woollen mills in Britain and those in the Dominion, and when freights were low and the intervening profits much'less than at present there was not the same inducement to launch out in establishing new factories in the Dominion as under present and future conditions, nor did acute economic features make it imperative to concentrate on greater production and the elimination of all waste. Times have changed and so must our methods if the burdens of the war—direct and indirect—are to be borne without undue stress. Nearly every prosperous district in the country has the nucleus of material for secondary industries. The Taranalci fanners have well equipped meat killing and freezing works at Smart road, the site being particularly adapted for wool-scouring and tanning leather. Why not make the equipment complete by adding a woollen mill, a tannery, and candle factory? It is only a question of additional capital, machinery and labor, all of which can be obtained if the right methods are used and the requisite courage, energy and enterprise exhibited. There can be no doubt as to the undertaking being a good paying proposition, and we nave no hesitation in commending the suggestion to the serious consideration of the producers. In the near future, with a regular service of coastal and overseas steamers at the port, New Plymouth will he a large distributing centre. For many years to come there will be excellent, markets for manufactured g'oods, so that there need he no fear of overproduction, while it should be the aim of ail concerned to make the Dominion as self-con-tained and self-reliant as possible. That was the view taken by the Parliamentary Committee on Industries last year, and its soundness cannot be disputed. Present conditions offer every encouragement for the establishment of secondary industries, so that industrial development that will not only afford remunerative employment for the rising generation, but will also attract useful immigrants, should be the outstanding feature of the reconstruction period on which the Dominion, in common with other countries, has entered. The price of clothing, boots and other commodities that can be manufactured in the Dominion concern the whole community seriously. That phase of the matter may not appeal to the primary producers, but the profits to be derived from by-pro-ducts would certainly be welcome, and it is money that talks convincingly where sentiment has no effect. The quality of New Zealand woollen goods is now appreciated both in the Dominion and abroad. The time is particularly opportune for industrial expansion, and the conditions existing in Taranaki are such as to thoroughly justify primary and secondary industries being carried on to the great advantage of producers and consumers. We cannot afford to let such vast sums of money be lost to the Dominion as in the past has been the case.