INDUSTRY GOES ABROAD.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 255, 28 October 1929, Page 4

INDUSTRY GOES ABROAD.

AUSTRALIAN HARVESTER WORKS,

PRODUCTION QUESTION.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, October 17.

An interesting and enlightening indication of the cost of high wages and low production to Australian industries is contained in an announcement from Melbourne this week to the effect that the H. V. McKay Proprietary, Ltd., is establishing a factory in Canada for the production of harvesters and other farm implements.

This means that the export business built up by this old-established Australian firm has become practically non-existent; so much so that to compete for the Canadian and South American markets the new factory has become a business necessity. Apart from the wages and production position, there is a tremendous disparity in the price of raw materials. The difference in price varies from 55 per cent to 112 per cent to. the disadvantage of Australia. On the question of the wages paid in the two countries, it is stated that the average annual wage of employees in implement factories in Canada is £236, while in Australia the figure \e £255. Notwithstanding the higher wage, however, the output per employee in Canada is £878 per annum as against £576 in Australia. Production and distribution have been seriously affected by Australian strikes— the bugbear of every Australian industrywhile the waterside and shipping conditions have been such that the freight on implements from Melbourne, Victoria, to Fremantle in West Australia, is actually greater than from New Y r ork to Australian ports. A striking commentary on the position is contained in a letter from Mr. H. V. McKay to a friend in Melbourne, received in the last mail from Canada. He says, inter alia: "The workers' unions in America and Canada leave politics severely alone. Canada has no better individual workers than we have, but no Canadian union would tolerate a dispute in a section of industry developing into a national affair, and Canadian workers themselves will not allow their local trouble!? to spread and hurt other industries. That is where we fall down in Australia.'