PRODUCTION NEEDED

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24866, 4 May 1946, Page 6

PRODUCTION NEEDED

MR FRASER ADDRESSES FACTORY WORKERS Great and serious problems facing New Zealand could not be solved by acts of Parliament or by awards, said the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser), addressing workers at Christchurch rubber factories yesterday. The solution lay simply in producing goods. An example of the world’s need for production was India, which had accumulated huge sterling balances but where people were starving because they could not get grain. In the Madras Province, where the monsoon had failed, millions would actually starve, whatever was done. They had plenty of money; they did not want charity; but they could not get food. Wages in New Zealand could go higher and incomes could mount, but unless the goods were there the money was just a delusion. People who did not do their share in production were lust cheating themselves and their fellow workers; either prices would rise through scarcity of goods, or there would be no goods. He had not seen that kind of worker in the factories he had visited that day. He had never seen more intelligent and industrious workers. Mr Fraser thanked the rubber factory staffs for the part they had played in the war effort. Through the enterprise of the companies and the efforts of the workers, the job had been done and much-needed goods had been supplied. During the war years it had not been easy for him to visit factories and talk with the workers and managements, but their efforts had been appreciated.