Whangarei Glassworks

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30041, 28 January 1963, Page 8

Whangarei Glassworks

The proposed sale of the Whangarei glassworks will end one of New Zealand’s most unfortunate industrial ventures in recent years. Responsibility for the present owners’ difficulties, however, can scarcely be laid upon the National Party Government, which erred on the side of generosity in upholding its predecessor’s promise of a protected market, and subsequently in guaranteeing an £BO,OOO bank overdraft. The Government’s wisdom in declining the McKendrick Glass Manufacturing Company's representations for further financial aid is today more than ever apparent Nevertheless, it is a matter for regret that although raw materials for glassmaking are available within New Zealand, the company has encountered

such formidable problems in manufacturing, at competitive prices, acceptable substitutes for imports. The Whangarei works have been so consistently dogged with ill fortune that optimism about the realisation value would be misplaced. On December 17 the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Marshall) said that, although the company had been placed in receivership, every effort would be made to continue the industry, because the assets of the glassworks had little value except as a going concern and because expert opinion supported confidence in the early capacity of the works to improve and increase output The Government said Mr Marshall, believed that if successful, the industry could save up to £500.000 a year in overseas exchange. While regretting that the glass company’s plans have miscarried, the Government correctly sees its duty to taxpayers as overriding any disposition to help indefinitely an enterprise most of whose profits would go to private shareholders. Perhaps the most interesting question to be asked now by the public is whether the concessions and guarantees given to the founder company will pass to a purchaser of the glassworks. The glass trade and consumers in New Zealand must already have been

embarrassed as a result of the McKendrick company’s operations. The Government should see to it that this embarrassment is stopped.