SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 198, 22 August 1935, Page 6

SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

Mr. C. A. Watts, secretary of the Ner Zealand Federated Boot Trades Association, has criticised the proposal to establish night classes to train youths in the footwear trade. Personally I think that any attempt by the Government or any organisation to deceive the youth of this country into the belief that they* can be absorbed into secondary industries in. New Zealand is criminal. There has been, far too much propaganda in recent years about the advantages of secondary industries, and we think Mr. Watts' statement that he has 128 a.dult skilled journeymen' on his list of unemployed is sufficient evidence that as far as the boot trade is concerned it is not an industry which Xew Zealanders should attempt to bolster up. New Zealand to-day has the highest tariff ever known in the history of the country, yet we have over 00,000 unemployed. Besides high tariffs, there are all sorts of other barriers to imported goods, and bonuses to the locally produced article, _ yet our secondary industries are not in a position to absorb their own unemployed. The sooner our politicians wake up to the fact that we must find other markets for our primary products, and conclude trade agreements so that we can sell to other countries and buy from them in return, the better it will be for Xew Zealand as a whole. We have heard too much in the past from the local Manufacturers' Association of what they would do if they had high protective tariffs. They have, tbeso, and yet there are 00,000 unemployed in Xew Zealand who have to be kept by the workers. T. REYNOLDS.