Local Industries and the M.E.D.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19451, 26 October 1928, Page 10

Local Industries and the M.E.D.

It is possible that the Municipal Elec- ! tricity Department has a better reply to the charges made at this week's meeting of the Canterbury Manufacturers' Association than is made this morning by Councillor Sharpe. Such charges would not have been made without some kind of justification in the M.E.D.'s apparent attitude to local industries, and it is to be hoped therefore that the committee set up by the Manufacturers' Association will not think that the Department's defence makes further investigation unnecessary. It is not necessary for us to say again that local industries are not entitled to preferential treatment merely because they are local, or for any reason at all than because they meet a public need. It is indeed the duty as well as the privilege of the M.E.D. to give the public the best goods it can for their money, and if it is able to show that it has sold or recommended foreign manufactures only when there was no local article approaching them in quality and price, that would be a good defence, though not perhaps a complete one, to the charge that it has shown no sympathy with local industry. It is, however, generally believed that there are electrical appliances made in Christchurch which are not only good in themselves but a good bargain tothe purchaser when allowance is made for the price at which they can be sold, and since the M.E.D. as a trading concern enjoys privileges which are granted to no private concern, and for which the public pay, it owes something to the public which other trading concerns can hardly afford to give. A private trading concern may reasonably hesitate about introducing a local article if it has already a profitable foreign agency, but the very least a municipal trading concern can do, in return for the advantages the public allow it, is to help local manufacturers to get their goods on the market if there is a market for them. Although the only specific charge against the M.E.D. is that its officials are "not "sympathetic'with local industries" — a charge which may mean a great deal or very little, and one which it is not easy to prove—the Department will make a- serious mistake if it supposes, as the Mayor does, that it is not called on to defend .itself further. Mr "Archer's attitude is indeed so foolish that it is difficult to find an explanation for it even in his growing intolerance of criticism.