Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1943. INDUSTRIES AND PLANNING.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 March 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1943. INDUSTRIES AND PLANNING.

JN deciding at the instance of one of its members (Councillor Gardner) to invite biscuit manufacturers to establish a factory in Masterton, the Borough Council has taken a practical step and one on which it is to be commended. It is coming to be recognised increasingly that the spread of industries is very much in the interests of the Dominion and its existing population and is essential to the overall expansion of population on which a secure national future must largely depend. Where the new industry now suggested is concerned, as no doubt in the case of a good many others, Masterton and the Wairarapa are able to offer some very material advantages of location and operating conditions. The question raised by a member of the council as to whether the proposed factory could be run on an economic basis in view of the population of the district is not obviously pertinent. Few manufacturing establishments of any great importance now sell any large part of their output at their immediate doors —even in these days of severely restricted trade a. glance over the stocks of various shops is instructive on that point—and some of the greatest industries of the world have been established in or extended into areas of comparatively light population. Many factories, irrespective of their location, have to distribute their output far and wide. There are some industries which it is advantageous or even necessary to locate within easy reach of deep-water berthage and of main transport depots of all kinds, but there are branches of manufacturing to which conditions of the kind are much less important. Whether it obtains or fails to obtain results in its approach to biscuit manufacturers, the Masterton Borough Council certainly should continue Jo interest .itself in the question of attracting additional industries to this part of the Dominion. The council might well be. assisted in its efforts to that end by a community organisation of the kind suggested by a correspondent in a letter published in this paper not long ago. Probably the council could take no more effective action towards attracting industries to the area under its control than in adopting an approved town development plan—a plan, that is to say, defining the lines on which improvement and development are to proceed as they become desirable and practicable. It perhaps needs still to be emphasised that the preparation and adoption of a plan of this kind, far from involving extravagant expenditure, would as a most essential object ensure that no money was spent wastefully in carrying out improvement or other works ahead of their time or in such a way as to entail future difficulty and needless loss. Amongst other things, the planning of the future development of the town —the only alternative to haphazard growth, confusion and waste —would ensure that industries were located with mutual advantage to those engaged in them and to the community in general. It should be appreciated that in the administration of a town, as in other affairs, something more is demanded than a readiness to deal in some groping fashion with detail problems and demands as they arise in the immediate foreground. The extension of industries of various kinds into provincial and rural areas —an extension that good planning might do so much to facilitate—is not an enterprise to be approached from a narrow or parochial standpoint. Development on these lines most definitely is demanded in the interests of the welfare of the Dominion and its people. There must be an increasing spread of.industry in this country if it is to be populated effectively and if its people are to enjoy the improving conditions of life and work which undoubtedly are attainable. So much is this so that in the absence of a spontaneous extension and spread of industries throughout the Dominion an increasing measure of public control over industry probably would come to be demanded. It is likely that, in one way or another, industrial development, as well as the location of industries in particular areas, will have to be planned as time goes on.