"Made in New Zealand."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19485, 15 November 1926, Page 18

"Made in New Zealand."

66ip9fcUi r New Zealand-made goods" is the slogan of this week during which the Auckland Provincial Industrial Associat.ion, with the co-operation of shop-keepers, will make a concentrated effort to arouse a somewhat, apathetic public to the economic importance of secondary industry. For the year ended March 31, 1925, fifteen and a-half millions sterling was paid in wages to people engaged in factory production in the Dominion. Where did this money go ? Some to the farmers for food, some went back to the manufacturers for goods it helped to bring into existence, but a very large proportion of it was expended on imported goods! The case for local industry is unanswerable. Yet there is a prejudice, sometimes a strong prejudice, against New Zealand goods. To some extent it is the result of a natural sentiment among people from the Mother Country in favour of " British-made," but this factor does not fully account for all the handicaps under which many branches of local manufacture suffer. There is evidence, unfortunately, of a lack of a broad spirit of co-operation in the community. Many people agree with the principle of supporting local industry but oppose it in their personal buying, forgetting that it is the individual purchase in the aggregate that decides the issue. Retailers may and do occasionally refuse to stock a New Zealand line simply because they insist upon handling some exclusive style, yet they are quite anxious to obtain the trade of the people who make the goods they refuse to handle. Shop assistants often express positive objections against goods made, perhaps in the same street in which they work, by men and women whose buying helps to give them jobs. Even manufacturers themselves are not invariably supporters of local industry for reasons that do not always appear to be adequate. That there is a good deal of prejudice against New Zealand goods is proved by retailers sometimes imposing upon manufacturers a condition that the articles must not be stamped " Made in New Zea- - land " and by cases which come to light quite frequently of the local , product being sold as " British." There was an instance of a traveller in New Zealand boots meeting a man who declared that American boots excelled and that he always wore them, but the traveller was al.ue to prove that the pair the man had on had been made in the factory he represented . , But far more to blame for the present position than retailers who are apathetic or Obstinate, is the buying public, so many of whom blindly hold to the idea that because an article was made in New Zealand it cannot be so good as one made overseas. Possibly, if the struggle to live were harder, the public, by being forced to buy more carefully and make money stretch out farther, would find the incentive, now largely lacking, to fully investigate the quality of local goods. They would find that many of their preferences are not good bargains. It is on the point of quality and sound value that the manufactureres can make one of their strongest appeals. Anyone who pauses to think the matter over will see how impossible it is for New Zealand factories to adulterate their materials, seeing that they must use the ;■ pure raw material at hand. Why are New Zealand rugs and blankets world famous? In the first place because they are made of pure wool, which could not be mixed with cotton or other . substitutes even if the makers wished to do so, because the substitute would cost more than the Ipcal wool. The same is the case with leather goods and in this regard the views of a boot manufacturer might be quoted. "New Zealand leather," he said, "is better in most classes-than we can import. Sole leather is superior and coloured calf is equalled by none." One visited the Newmarket confectionery factory which employs 200 hands, to find out if there was any reason for the huge importation of English and foreign chocolate. Without hesitation one can say that the local milk chocolate in particular is as good if not superior to the best imported. The facts that New Zealand milk has the highest vitamine content in the world, a quality which is not lost in the drying process, that the chocolate-making must conform to tho requirements of one of the most stringent pure food laws in the world and that a chemist is regularly employed to test all ingredients, might be accepted as complete proof that the product has a food value and maintains a standard to satisfy the most exacting. Yet the splendid confectionery of this and all the other factories in the country must fight a public prejudice which is certainly fostered by the nature of displays in many retail windows. Does anyone doubt the quality of New Zealand furniture? Although it does not have to meat any serious competition from other countries it has a standard of quality, sound workmanship and style that are probably not excelled at the price in any country. No one is ashamed , Or regretful that his house is full of New Zealand furniture, so why should there be any doubt about other manufactures ? The skill of the cabinetmaker finds its counterpart in the skill of the tanner, the engineer, the spinner and weaver, the bootmaker, the biscuit maker, the confectioner, the jam maker, the sail maker, the sugar refiner, the tinsmith, the knitter and the packer of provisions. Fashion is an influence which cannot be gainsaid, in some directions accounting for heavy imports. In some branches of industry the local manufacturer may not be able to compete against overseas, despite the tariff wall, but generally speaking " Made in New Zealand is a hallmark of quality and value, where that trade-mark is affixed. It is a pity that so often it is absent. " I am as keen as any man in tha city to help the trade of Britain," said a representative manufacturer. "There is nothing but British machinery in my factory and there never will be foreign if I can avoid it. It i 3 sometimes suggested that the best way to help Britain in her struggle is to buy her goods. My opinion is that the best way to help is to absorb her surplus population by extending our own industries. Even then British trade will not lose, because if we import less of one class of goods we will take mor6 of the classes we cannot hops to produce and most certainly we will .buy more factory plant."