Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1938. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRIES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 June 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1938. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRIES.

AN assertion by the Minister of Industries and Commerce (the Hon X D. G. Sullivan) that chambers of commerce furiously opposed every proposal to establish manufacturing industries in New Zealand has been denied indignantly by the president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and was further challenged by the president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce (Mr P. E. Pattrick) and other members of that body at a meeting of its council on Wednesday night.

One member of the Wellington chamber, Mr M. G. C. MeCaul, observed that it had always regarded both primary and secondary industries as of equal importance in their own sphere, and the desire had been evinced that . all should prosper. Generalities of this kind are far from exhausting the interest of the subject, and perhaps hardly touch the issues really involved in the extension of secondary industries in this country.

As the economy of the Dominion takes shape today, excellent reasons may be found at least for considering whether the extension of secondary industries should not be made, much more than it has been thus far, a settled aim of our public policy. Weighty reasons may be found, also, for asking whether bodies representing various sections of industry and trade might not be expected to support positively the development of secondary industries from a broader and larger standpoint than that of any sectional interest.

The expansion of' secondary industries is opposed chiefly on the ground that it nearly always involves tariff protection and that in the outcome goods are produced internally at much higher prices than would have to be paid for corresponding imports and that an increased burden of costs is thus imposed on our largely unsheltered primary industries. On the other hand, it is clear that if we allowed trade to take its course and admitted imports of any and every kind free of duty, a substantial part of the working population would at once find itself unemployed. Probably even those who are completely convinced that our policy of tariff protection is unsound would agree that the general removal of tariff duties would be an act of national suicide.

Another aspect of the position which needs to be considered is that in the extent, and only in the extent to which its economy is self-contained—with primary products exchanging for goods manufactured internally and services rendered within its borders —the Dominion is sheltered against external economic blizzards. There is no obvious reason why a fair economic balance should not be struck between farmers and those engaged in manufacturing and other secondary industries within the Dominion, but we have no means whatever of insisting upon the establishment of a fair economic balance in our external trade and in the payment of our debts domiciled overseas.

Without' labouring these points unduly, it may be observed that they suggest rather important conclusions — in particular, that the Dominion is better off with some of its industries artificially supported than it would be without these industries. The matter of determining just how far it, will be profitable for the Dominion to go in- developing industries that could not stand unsheltered against world competition thus presents itself as one that is worthy of complete and searching investigation.

Chambers of commerce, and other bodies representing industry and trade, ought to be ready, and even eager, to approach questions of this kind, not merely in a spirit of toleration and readiness to accept things as they are, but with a constructive determination to go as far as possible in making things better than they are. Given united effort on these lines, a good deal possibly might be done to remove or obviate objections to a further considerable expansion of secondary industries in this country. Our best brains in .industry and commerce cannot be employed more profitably, from their own standpoint and that of our whole community, than in so planning and organising the expansion and development of industry that we shall be as little as possible at a disadvantage in that development in comparison with countries of larger population and longer experience.