UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 95, 23 April 1928, Page 8

UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM.

DRIFT TO THE CITIES.

FOSTER SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

THE ONLY SOLUTION.

"I believe that if we are going to make New Zealand a great country, we have to study our secondary industries. I am afraid that in the past we have allowed the interests of the primary industries to outweigh the interests of the secondary industries."'

Thus said Mr. A. Harris, M.P. for Waitemata, speaking at the sixteenth annual convention of the Federated Coach and Motor Body Builders, which was opened in Auckland this morning.

Continuing, Mr. Harris said that one must acknowledge that New Zealand was building up centres that were fairly thickly populated, that must depend to a large extent for employment on their secondary industries. He was strongly of the conviction, therefore, that reasonable protection should be given the latter, so that adequate employment might be created. Referring to the relation between employment and industries, Mr. Harris said that previously, when unemployment was rife in the centres, they were able to turu to men and tell them that they could obtain work in the country. To-day the position was reversed. Work was scarce in the countr.v, and men from the rural districts were flocking to the cities and large towns to engage in relief works. The only practical solution to the problem was to develop the secondary industries as far as possible.

Mr. Harris believed that the body builders had a claim for assistance— a claim for a decrease in the duty on imported chasses that would enable the building of bodies in New Zealand. 'It is recognised that the New Zealand-built motor body is second to none, and if that is so and we can build them satisfactorily, we should try and do it," he added. In this way subsidiary industries would also benefit. In conclusion, Mr. Harris said he was afraid that, when the Government was considering tariff reforms last session, its general aim to give preference to British manufactures caused it to overlook to some extent the development of the secondary industries. j