"BETTER THAN NOTHING"

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 258, 31 October 1929, Page 28

"BETTER THAN NOTHING"

I EXTRA FOOTWEAR DUTY. HOW IT WORKED IN AUSTRALIA. A DOUBLE-EDGED GOOD THING. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) DUXEDIN, this day. Regarding the report of the coinmitte 11 of inquiry on the footwear trade, ; t Dunediu employer who is in a large wa; e of business says 5 per cent extra impor duty would be better than uotliiug, sine. 'I it would bring the duty to 20 per cent c but he cannot believe that such an in d crease will solve the problem. In Aus s tralia there is a duty that runs up t< ■1~) per cent in sonic eases, and that keep! out imported boots and shoes. Never theless, it is acting in a double-edged way 3 for as "a good thing" was sighted new - factories started up in numbers, and tin ' proprietors are now cutting each other's t" throats in the matter of prices, so that ' trade there is in a bad state, boots beinj. 1 cheaper than here. That sort of com J petition is going on in New Zealand f There are too many makers for the > population. It is said there are forty '■ factories of one sort or another in Auck- : land alone, many of them barely earning their salt. The public are, of course, : getting the benefit. The- main remedy is, • however, to keep out staple lines, and the 5 per cent is better than nothing. Taking the recommendations one by one, the piecework system has been tried and found unsatisfactory. Improvement of the , layout of factories is constantly going on in leading establishments. The routing of orders is a daily practice, and nothing new. Procuring of an experienced management engineer is quite a good idea. No one can say how amalgamation would work. There may be something in the recommendation that manufacturers should have shops of their own controlling, but it is commonly believed that the biggest of the firms that had tried that system had to sack twenty men recently. It would be impossible to have a purchasing centre. One of the Labour leaders who is in the boot trade says that members of the committee, apart from officials, agreed to ask for 5 per cent increased duty, so as to give employers a chance to carry out the general recommendations. The proposal to improve layouts must entail expenditure, and does not give any guarantee of increased orders. Lack of orders compels manufacturers to accept any small line that retailers offer. Manufacturers have to go after the smallest orders, and such orders entail continuous change and adjustment of machines. There is every reason to suppose that piecework could be satisfactorily reintroduced hero if under proper safeguards. Reports from unions in England are to the effect that they would not abolish piecework. Men in New Zealand am divided on that question, but it is worth a trial: not, however, on present New "Zealand methods. The recommendations as a whole are quite good, and in the interests of the trade on both sides. Something in the way of improvement in the men's position is surely called for. Last year there were 204R employees in the industry and 646 of them on short time for 16 weeks.