ASSURED FUTURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1943, Page 3

ASSURED FUTURE

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN NEW ZEALAND MINISTER ADDRESSES CONFERENCE. NEED OF DECENTRALISATION EMPHASISED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NAPIER, October 12. “If I were aked to say in a sentence what I believe to be our future policy for New Zealand's manufacturing industries, I would say the maximum utilisation of our productive capacity in men, materials and plant, and if that capacity can produce goods beyond our requirements, then the production of surpluses of whatever classes of goods can be marketed overseas,” said the Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr Sullivan, at the opening of the conference in Napier this morning of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation. While there were still many question marks, the Minister added, he believed the future was more clearly outlined for their industrial life than for many other phases of post-war society. “I recognise no fundamental argument as between town and country and as between manufacturing and farming,” Mr Sullivan continued. “There are problems we will have to tackle, such as whether there should be more manufacturing in rural areas, to which I would answer yes. and mutual understanding as between farmer and industrialist, and so on, but there can be only one aim—-maximum gainful employment by whatever means lie in our power. There was a dangerous tendency growing in this country, Mr Sullivan said, for too great centralisation of industry at four or five major points, and if this trend continued it was going to have an unbalanced effect on the country as a whole. The Government’s plans envisaged the more even distribution of industry in a manner which would embody not only the distribution of manpower but would take into consideration such problems as transportation and the location of raw materials. The Government’s plans would permit an examination to be made of unsatisfactory conditions, particularly in small industries, so far as buildings wore concerned. Commenting on the future of control. Mr Sullivan said they had been asured by the Prime Minister in previous years that the war time emergency regulations so necessary at present to bring victory in the fight for freedom would be relaxed as soon as wisdom proved such an action to be in the best interests of the nation. “My personal opinion is that more joint planning by the Government and industrial authorities will be an essential need of the future of industry,” he observed.