NEW ZEALAND SCRUPLES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 67, 19 March 1915, Page 7

NEW ZEALAND SCRUPLES.

LOCAL GOOXtS DlS_»__-f__>. A SGGGESTIBD BOARD OF TRADE. The proposal originating from the Canterbury Industrial Association, that the Government should he - urged to establish a Board of Trade for the Dominion, was explained to a meeting held in the Auckland Chamber of Commerce yesterday, in the coarse of an address by Mr. J. A. Frostick, of Christchurch, one of the originators of the scheme. Mr. S. J. HaTbutt, president of the Auckland lnd-ustrial Association, presided. Mr. Frostick pointed out that despite the general prosperity of the country, people had been impressed by what had happened in the Dominion in various periods of what was called financial depression. To counteract these there had been attempted, from time to time, measures of a palliative, character, but no permanent steps had been taken. Mr. Frostick proceeded to draw.attention to the financial stringency that ensued j when the amount of imports approached the total exports. For years we had ; imported twenty million pounds' worth- of [ goods, for which we had paid dn gold or its equivalent. Speaking of the way in which the national debt had been piled |up without securing productive works or sources of wealth, the speaker said there had been instances where money had •been borrowed for the purpose of repairing railway stocks. If there was a country in.the world where intermittent employment ought to be the exception rather than the rule, it was New Zealand. MADE IN NEW ZEALAND. Proceeding to allude to the scope that existed for industrial expansion in New Zealand, Mr. Frostick pointed out that the province of Canterbury was as largo as the whole of Belgium, which carried a population of seven millions. He urged that the people of the Dominion should be educated to support its own industries, and believe in its own potentialities, as had been done in America. Germany, too, bad adopted a policy of making the people recognise that the producte of the country were good enough for the' people of the country. It was time for us to do what England •was now doing tn the case of goods previously obtained from Germany, viz., making'them herself. Many people in New Zealand were ashamed of the goods made in the Dominion. - There were hundreds of people walking about Auckland fondly believing they were wearing boots made in come, other country, when all the time they were made in their own country. The speaker quoted further figures showing the imports of goods which were already being manufactured here, and urged that a board of trade, free from the restrictions and defects of the •old-established body- in England, and aided by a council of experts in the important industrial centres, should be established in the Dominion. In order tliat New Zealand goods should be recognisedj there should be a Dominion stamp, and after our own industries had been encouraged, preference should be given to those made in other parts of the 'Empire, which could be similarly branded.