INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LVI, Issue 41, 24 May 1935, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS

DOMINION EXPANSION.

GROWTH OF MANUFACTURE

A statement regarding the progress of industrial development in New Zealand has been issued by the general secretary of the New Zealand Manufacturers' Association, Mr A. E. Mander.

"How many realise that to-day a quarter of the total populatidn of the Dominion is maintained, directly and indirectly, by our manufacturing industries?" Mr Mander asks. "How many are aware that there are rather more breadwinners directly employed in the factories than the number of all the dairy farmers and farm workers —including members of the farmers' own families —in the whole of New Zealand? Finally, how.many of us appreciate the significance of the following figures, which show the, total value of the goods produced during the year?:—

j Manufactured goods . £30,093,000 j Dairy Produce .. 21,200,000 Meat and Wool .. 20,400,000 "... One of the few bright spots of these bad times has been the way in which manufacturers, on the whole, have met the crisis. Most of them have displayed surprising initiative and enterprise in starting new lines of production. Like the farmers, many of the manufacturers also found that the ..slump had ruined their businesses, destroying the market for the goods they had been making and selling in the past.

•The slump itself has been the opportunity for many of our manufacturers to show what stuff they are made of, and they have come through the ordeal triumphantly. As a result of their enterprise, an astonishing number of new industries have been brought into existence and have achieved success during the Jast

five years."

Examples of expansion in New Zealand manufactures, cited by Mr Mander, include the production of electric ranges and other classes of electrical goods, lawnmowers, slippers and shoes, steel office furniture and filing cabinets, petrol bowsers, silk stockings, artificial silk fabric for women's underwear, and radio sets, the last-named (excluding valves) being now manufactured in the Dominion to a value of over £250,000 yearly.

Mr Mander adds: "These are but a few examples of the scores of cases which might be cited, proving that New Zealand manufacturers have no lack of initiative and enterprise. The same enterprise, the same resourcefulness, the same efficiency, which have been proved as characteristics of the New Zealand people in days gone by—in pioneering the colony, in the Great War, in sport, and in many other fields—these same qualities are showing themselves to-day in the field of manufacturing industry. New Zealanders have the right to be proud of what New Zealand is achieving in the industrial field."