Local Industries Help Maintain Employment

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28758, 2 December 1958, Page 21

Local Industries Help Maintain Employment

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, November 30. The greatest contribution local industries made to New Zealand was that they helped the Dominion to maintain its record of employment, the Prime Minister (Mr Nash) said at Green Island on Saturday. Mr Nash was officially opening the new concrete block factory at Brighton road of Vibrapac (Otago), Ltd. After the ceremony he pressed a button to set the plant’s automatic block-making machine in motion. Industries using local raw materials to make goods for use in New Zealand .were welcome, said Mr Nash. They were of service to the country particularly at this time, but it was in the employment field that they gave their greatest service. “One thing we in New Zealand can say is that there is no unemployment,” Mr Nash said. “That is something you cannot say for any other country—even our friends, Australia and Canada. When good men and good women want to work and cannot, that is an indictment.” (The concrete industry directly employed some 2000 workers and in the last five years it had increased its production by some 50 per cent., he said. Its pro-

duction value in 1956 was £5 million. He understood that houses built from concrete masonry could be lowered in cost. A total of 19,200 homes was built last year and if £ 100 could have been saved on each, £2 million could have been saved and New Zealand would be that much better off. In the last few months there had been a greater demand for building permits than for some time. About £lOO million was spent In building last year, which was considered by some to be too much for a country of New Zealand’s size. He said the Government had lowered interest rates so that home owners would not have to carry such large interest burdens. "A home of your own is the ideal. If you cannot do it yourself, the State should help you, but it is better if you do it yourself,” he said.