AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS MANUFACTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 149, 24 June 1908, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS MANUFACTURE.

EFFECT OF OUTSIDE COMPETITION. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. The now defunct Agricultural Implement Manufacture Importation and Sale Act of 1905 was referred jto by' a witness* in the moulders' case, before the Arbitration Court to-day, as "a fraud," in that it had not given the manufacturers of agricultural implements in the Dominion that protection against American manufactures that was expected from it. The witness stated that his firm had been working for several months to get some benent from the Act, and had been successful J to the extent of a paltry £19. In the meantime the pressure of competition from the American and Canadian, companies was increasing every day. He read a letter from an agent of his firm to the effect that if the Government did not give adequate protection the firm would have to manufacture lighter and cheaper ploughs, as one of the American companies was selling ploughs £10 cheaper than the Dominion manufactured: article was sold at. ana was giving purchasers three years In which to pay the money. The intensity of the competition of the American manufactured article was urged by the employees as a reason why Canterbury employers could not afford to pay moulders the same rate o£ wages as are p'airl moulders in Auckland and Duncdin, where 1/3 per hour is paid, in comparison with 1/1 A that the Canterbury employees want. The President of the Court aaid that the employers would have to show that conditions in Canterbury differed from those in Auckland, otherwise they would have to pay the Auckland rates.