Colonial Industries.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4773, 26 April 1884, Page 3

Colonial Industries.

A Southern magazine very sensibly puts this important subject thus :— ■ We have frequently complained that the press of our colony has been uniformly backward in its support of colonial interests. It has always appeared to us that the importing influence was either too strong or unnecessarily feared—that newspapers generally were afraid of offending their main supporters, the merchants. Whether we were right or wrong in our judgment as to reasons we care rery little. What concerns ns much more is the fact—" which nobody can deny "— that a great change is taking place. Newspapers that a few years ago were silent on all matters opposed to the importing interest now boldly come to the front with such expressions as the following:—" When shopping, always purchase New Zealand made goods.' For example, every housewife can ask for Mosgiel or Kaiapoi or presently Wellington blankets. She can buy Wellington candles and Wellington soap, and know that she is doing good. 'Every woman when''buying dessert should choose New Zealand grown cherries and strawberries and apples, rather than imported figs or raisins. Every man could ask for New Zealand stuff for his clothes, and colonial made shoes and slippers for his feet. .... The sums of money whjch year by year this colony sends away for the purchase of useless luxuries, and for the payment of imported-necessities which are equally well produced in the colony, is something astounding. . ... Fancy buying preserved milk from Switzerland, employing and paying Swiss laborers for their work when our own milkmen can barely pay their way ! People actually buy peaches grown and preserved in America, and neglect those grown here. All the money sent out to the colony for salmon, lobsters, herrings, oysters, honey, clothes pegs, and a host of articles besides, is money vanished—clean gone from us— and we might have kept every penny of it in thismoney-bungeringcolony," These, extracts are from the N.Z. Times (Wellington) ; and though we have not the room to reprint similar exhortations which have appeared in many other New Zealand papers lately, our present object is gained if we call attention to the change which is going on. But let us here put in a word en behalf of those journals which are thus assisting the manufacturing interest as against the importing. Manu* facturers and the public generally should remember tbat such papers run a great risk in espousing their cause; and they should see to it that they do all that in them lies to return the support. Those who . have regard to the wellbeing of the colony should with* hold their favors—in the shape of advertisements aud subscriptions—from all newspapers who do not come forward heartily in the cause of industrial development. Even those merchants who depend solely upon the import trade should see — though they don't-— that it is to their.interest that the colony should progress in this way. The decreased imports would soon result in increased exports, both of which results would combine to offer the Tery best inducement in favor of extended immigration of th* attizan class, which in turn would cause a greater demand for the goods that for years must be imported. We heartily, welcome this improvement on the part of the Press, as showing the tendency of thought generally.

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