USING THE HOME PRODUCT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 138, 13 June 1931, Page 8

USING THE HOME PRODUCT.

(To tho Editor.)

May I be permitted to join with tout correspondent ''A New Zealand Worker" in deploring the unwarranted position which the timber industry finds itself to-day, with hundreds, of thousands of pounds' worth of valuable sawniilling plant idle and depreciating and thousands of honest, liard-workinn- me ° n ' thrown on an already overflowing Hst 0 f unemployed? From 192 Cto 1930,"inclusive a total of approximately four million pounds' which should belong to the workers of this country, has been sent away to purchase a commodity which already abounds from one end of New Zealand to the other. How many sawniilling companies during the last five years have paid dividends to their shareholders? How many thousands of hard-won savings are "going west" to-day? From reports recently published it would appear that all are making losses —due to the unfair treatment meted out by the Government of our country to both employer and employee of this great industry—a Government which has to its hand the means of righting this monstrous wrong by debarring the importation of the wholly unnecessary foreign timbers. Not only to timber is this applicable, but to many other commodities which our New Zealand manufacturers can place on the market in value second to none. Were this happy consummation effected, then the slogan uttered by so many of our politicians, "Country First!" would have been truly put into effect in a happy and prosperous Dominion. ANOTHER WORKER.