FATE OF SMALL FIRMS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21906, 6 October 1936, Page 14

FATE OF SMALL FIRMS

INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY ?! SCHEME

MANUFACTURERS NOT ALARMED

Whether certain smaller industrial firms are efficient and essential in the national efficiency system planned by tiie Government seems likely to be a point for much difference of opinion. Although there has been indication that some .smaller units may be absorbed in the larger ones or directed' into special channels, the manufacturers who are likely to be affected are not at the moment greatly disturbed.

The opinion of most of the manufacturers, big and small, is that so long as their section of an industry is carried on efficiently they have no cause for worry. This is the view most are taking and although they are keenly interested in what the Minister for Industries and Commerce (the Hon. D. G. 'Sullivan) and his staff will do: to put into effect their rationalising scheme under the Industrial Efficiency Billj they are not suffering any great anxiety. Mr C. H. Burson, .president of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association, said yesterday that members of the association were watching developments keenly but the scheme had not yet been carried far enough for them to make any definite pronouncement of their views upon. it. So long as their umts were efficient Canterbury manufacturers did not find cause for alarm.

Many of the smaller operators are confident that their units of industry are essential and efficient in themselves. It seems therefore that the determination of which firms should change their methods, the type of work they are doing, or their management, is likely to be left almost entirely to the Minister and his staff.