BOOT INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 248, 19 October 1937, Page 8

BOOT INDUSTRY.

DEPRESSING PICTURE.

(FACTORIES RUNNING SLOW. 1 INSPECTION" BY MINISTER. (My T< 1.--r.-iiih — Own Ci.iivsponuVnf ) i lll;lsTcnri;cil. this iiny. A 1 li- [>ii — inlt picture of condition* in llu , I'o.it in.l nnfact uring industry in (liri-tchii!'i-li u:h presented to the Minister of Labour, I he Hon. H. T. Armstrong. I hi-* nicMiiiiLT. when lie \isited two of tin , li-j» ■! in ir factories. The 1 bject of the Minister'- visit. Mas to see at first hand ihe diflieiilt ic< eniifrontiiig the industry, in order to try and getiU the root cause of the t rouble The Milli-fer explained the Government wantcil to be sure any >tep-* it took to .i-MM the industry were the right oiuw. Tlu- present slackness in the trade, the Minister u.is told by the principal* «>f the lirniM, developed very suddenly. They were at. a loss to account for such 11 sudden fnlling-off in orders, but they did know that imports, particularly from Britain, hud increased very substantially. The manager of one factory said he thought lii-i concern would be able to weatlier the storm, but to-day d.xty men nnd fifteen women had been stood off for ii day and to-morrow twenty men and thirty women would be off for the day. Heavy Drop in Wages. In another factory the amount paid out in weekly wages had dropped by C7O a week. "Our employees are losing wages nnd we are losing the value ol' ( their production." the manager remarked. It w:is impressed on the Minister that the conditions to-day were much worse than they hud been during the depression years, an orders were not coining in and stocks were accumulating. One manager mentioned the case of a man who asked to b» dismissed because he would do better drawing sustenance than working such tdiort time at the factory. The Minister waa much impressed with what he saw, and remarked that the Government had the problem under consideration.