MORE FACTORIES FOR NEW ZEALAND

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 281, 22 August 1940, Page 8

MORE FACTORIES FOR NEW ZEALAND

Australian Company

IMPRESSIONS OF RECENT VISITOR Dominion Special Service.

AUCKLAND, August 21. “There is no doubt that immediately the war is over many Australian companies will establish branch factories in New Zealand. In fact within the next few months two large Sydney concerns will have completed their plans for doing so,” said Mr. James Fletcher, managing director of the Fletcher ’ Construction Company, Limited, in giving some impressions of an Australian tour, from which be recently returned. In the course of a month, Mr. Fletcher staled, he went over a largo number of industrial plants in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland “It is an absolute revelation to see the development that has taken place in secondary industry and the part that various plants are playing in the production of munitions and war equipment,” he declared. “The variety of lines now being manufactured in Australia is simply astounding. In quality and cost they compare most favourably with similar goods made overseas. '

“One of the big problems in Australia today is the shortage of steel. This is caused by the large amount being used by industrialists in the Commonwealth for the manufacture of munitions and other war requirements and to the export of tremendous quantities to Britain.” Mr. Fletcher was greatly impressed by the plywood industry, which, he said, had been developed to a high state of efficiency in Queensland through the State’s control of forests. The manufacturer had been able to secure suitable timbers for making not only low grade or commercial threeply, but also all types of high class veneer used in furniture today. Queensland was exporting millions of feet of plywood to Britain, and was also able to supply a large part of that required for the Indian and Ceylon tea trade and the rubber industries of the Malay States.

Motoring between Sydney and Brisbane, Mr. Fletcher saw the terrible conditions produced by drought, which has prevailed there for five years. Reservoirs, he stated, were at such low Level that consumption had been restricted and would have to be reduced still further. The water supply problem in Sydney particularly was serious.