EMPIRE SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 144, 21 June 1922, Page 16

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT

: JQ4SB - FOB -INDCOTREES, , rsTb!ac& je 4 further side to the qn«Bjttan,. JJenp Zealand has been developed 'to ta*' almost entirety as a farming cotnrfcrVj and that chiefly pastoral. The mesent Government of the Right Hon. 'tWi 81,B1, Massey, himself an old farmer, lias rather tended to exaggerate this .development, ;with a consequent stimulus to the cost of land to the \would-be -iannar. As a manufacturing country for export, New Zealand is quite insig;nificant, and even for home use manufactures little and imports much., Yet, so far as climate and natural resources fo, there is ho country in the world etter suited for industrial development. Tho' climate is one of infinite variety locally and throughout the year. In' Wellington, for instance, one seldom gets two days together of the same weather, and there are such extremes, of rainfall as 14 inches annually in Central Otago to ) 140 in Hokitika, on the West Coast across the Southern Alps. .No country in the world has greater resources in water-power for its size. Coal there is in abundance, some of ifc < the highest quality—next to the best Welsh steam coal. Iron ore of limonite character exists in enormous quantities, running into hundreds of millions of tons in the Parapara Ranges of the Collingwood district of the South Island, and this ore exists in such close conjunction with the other essential ingredients, coal and limestone, that the one is mined only, s^ven miles away, | and the limestone is ,brougKt to the blast furnace by the same aerial tramway as j brings the ore. This is ati.the Onakaka Steel and Iron Company's new .works, which, produced its first batch of pig j iron a month ago—iron when, on an- ] alysis by the State Analyst, was found to be equal in tjuality to the very best Scotch pig, and was quickly bought up by foundries. This company Ub capitalised locally, and seems to liave surmounted its original difficulties. Add 'to these resources copper, asbestos, pottery clay of the very best cinnabar, tin, and otfier ores, and it will be seen that there is abundant room for industrial development in New Zealand. "SQUARE PBG'N ECONOMY, So far the endeavour has been to find immigrants in England suitable for fanning and allied industries here. But the agricultural population of the United Kingdom is not large, and this source of- immigration has already been-»exploit-ed, probably to .England's serious detriment. Many men emigrating from. England to New Zealand pass themselves off as,farm labourers to secure the passage, and thus one has the spectacle of some highly-skilled mechanic or textile operative milling cows or .working sheep. All this is thoroughly bad economy?—the economy of the square peg in ; the round hole. The ideal would be to have a place at this end suitable for every immigrant, so that he practically transfers his labour from one part of the Emf pire to another. But such an ideal is quite impossible of attainment for many years. England's industrial system has taken more than a century"to build, and the dictum, "Rome was not built in a day," would apply here. But the rapid development of Australia as a manufacturing country shows, what can be done in a comparatively few years by fostering care and intelligent diree&on, ■. _' OBSOLETE • IDEAS, *£liei"^jld idea- of England as ih& workshop of the world—the ideal of the freetraders of lhe Manchester school—died a natural death in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The world was not content to be merely a producer of raw material for. England to exploit and sell back In the manufactured state. There I /.is Kardly a country inline world to-day ■that has not the ambition, at least, of some day manufacturing for itself. So the Britain of to-day is, at the best, a primus inter pares with Europo and iAmerica in manufacture, and is hard put to it in competition for markets gradually becoming-, more.limited. WORKSHOP/ OF. EMPIRE?—NO. Tho idea of the workshop of the world-was succeeded by the idea of the workshop of the Empire, and this has lasted well into the present century. But it seems doomed. Australia has already entered the. field as, an exporter of manufactured articles, as well as a maker for her own use. The Commonwealth is far ahead,of,this.Dominion in that respect, and,until recently, looked upon New Zealand as a nice, little,1 con- ] venient market for the disposal of .a surplus of manufactured goods. The story of the negotiations to secure a more equitable reciprocity of trade is too recent to need further comment here. Canada is manufacturing on a much .greater sale still, and does a considerable trade with New Zealand in 'all sorts of manufactured goods from -motor-cars to news-papers. And in the meantime New Zealand's own secondary industries tend-to languish. : NOT BY FARMING 'ALONE. The conception, therefore, of Britain, as the manufacturing centre of the Empire, receiving supplies,of raw .material from the Dominions arid ;Colonies, and distributing the finished, article is becoming.obsolete, so far, at^an-yrate as the more advanced Dominions are concerned. A primary producing country, a puroly agricultural country, can never 6iipport anything like tho population of a manufacturing country. Not fifteen per cent, of Britain's forty and odd millions of population are engaged on the land or connected with it. The number actually employed, in farming is said to be about itwo million. Similarly, it is doubtful whether any system of closer settlement and the most intensive methods of farming can pnek any more into New Zealand as a purely agricultural country. Development of intensive culture is very largely dependent on the law of rent— /that is to say, prices mus^make it worth .Jv.'hiie. During the hungry yeaTS of the wars, 'when wheat rose to •unheard-of prices, the very hill-tops were cultivated in England, but when wheat jbecame cheap agnin and supplies from lArnerica poured in. the area under cultifation shrank and shrank until before •the war ifc was very small indeed, compared with the population and the area of the country. Dun-ing- tlio years of the submarine blockade in the late war the ■same phenomenon was again apparent. Pastures, for generations in permanent grass, were ploughed up again under the* stimulus of lrigh prices and State en-, couragemcat. To-day in the slump of (farming the same Jftnd is all going back' into grass. Here,..too, something1 of the teame kind is apparent. High prices for (produce proved an intense stimulus to jproduction during the war, as' well as a direct spur to the ramp in land valnes. jfThe effect is obvious to-day in the slump. DRAWING CONCLUSIONS. What, then, aro the conclusions to be drawn from the data, if immigration on a large scale is to be promoted?l First, there must be. si Public Works development on a definite plan and on far larger lines thai) at present. There should bo not so much, quibbling as to methods. Different onos might bo employed for different works in different parts of tho country. In ono instance, the large -private contract might be applied, in another, the syftcm of small contracts. The Public Works. Department might directly undertake another work, as they do, generally >fcft-d33S, Jfk '.flnS^r jigi-,

stance, the military method of construction might be used. Under this system large bodies of immigrants, for whose special trades there might not be much demand at the time, or who were ■•essentially unskilled in labour, might be drafted into military engineering corps for the purpose of construction work. Many men after their experience during the war would work better under this system, with its asaured pay, allotment and allowances, and complete organisation, than in any private employment or in public works as at present conducted. Lastly, there is the simple system of a, ■little guild of experts, in a particular class of work, who undertake the skilled •labour, if'the plant and material are .produced. The whole idea should- be to avoid stereotyped methods of employment, and give every man immigrant or inhabitant the very best opportunity of getting the best Out of himself for the goo^l of the community and himself. ; ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY. The second conclusion is that industries of all kinds, for which the Dominion by its natural resources and climate is suitable, should be directly, definitely, and wisely encouraged. This is not to bid for a. policy of high protection. It would be a simple thing to clap on SO to 100 per cent, ad valorem duties on all imported articles, and let the consumer pay. This will only encourage hole-and-corner industries which struggle along today somehow to continue in slovenly, uneconomic methods, making; their profits by, protection and not oy good organisation, , equipment, management, and enterprise—in a word, would be a direct bonus to inefficiency. The idea should ibe to aim at getting the very best plant obtainable in the world today ; to use only the most up-to-date methods; to reduce overhead costs to a minimum; to train the worker technically to the highest degree of skill; to put on the market a better article. The very freights to-day to New Zealand are a fair measure of protection in many lines. A properly organised industry should be able to make headway even under the present moderate Tariff. Wages in New Zealand are not higher than in America —the cheapest, motor ear in the world is made by the highestpriced labour, It is really a question of method. LACK OF CAPITAL. There are, however, serious handicaps to manufacturing industry here which the Government might well consider. One is the company tax, which, among other contributing evils, imposes also the difficulty of raising capital. Many industries are. languishing in New Zealand1 to-day for lack oJ capital to put them on a proper basis. The public prefers to put its money into public and municipal and other local body loans, into real estate, into mortgages, and, until recently, into speculative . purchase of farming lands. Money invested in this way seldom does as much good for the counti-y as it would if it were laid out in reproductive industry.' The net result is that there is little scope for the inventor in New Zealand. He ...cannot get his ideas, if they need manufacture at all, put into concrete form except at extreme cost in an unsatisfactory way. The consequence is that most inventions go abroad, to England, America, or Australia, for exploitation. A proper development of secondary industries, particularly in engineering and iron and steel manufacture, .generally would furnish the outlet requh'ed on the spot, without forcing brains to go abroad for a. market. BRITAIN'S OWN DUTY. There is one further point which may be very well made here. As Empire migration and settlement is to benefit the Old Couniry as'well as the Dominions, then there should be some more obvious effort made in the Old Country to help the Dominions the marketing of their\ ■produce. There would have been no' meat pool and no tallt of a dairy pool if things had been all right with the people at the other end. But the Dominions cannot' be expected to take England's surplus'population and find, employment for it unless England, on the other hand, takes our surplus produce and endeavours to find the' best market for it. The people of the Old Country can have no grouse against the Dominions if they prefer to patronise the Argentine and Denmark to New Zealand and Australia. That is the third conclusion: That, if there is to be greater! co-ordination in the transfer of surplus population, there must be greater co-ordination in the distribution and disposal of our ' surplus produce. Both are parts of the same great question. ' THE THREE ESSENTIALS. But in the meantime for New Zealand the way would seem to lie through a larger compx-ehensive scheme of public works, carried on by all the means the best brains of the country could suggest in harmony with the nature of the work •proposed."" Secondly, the varied, callings of the immigrant would best be suited by the establishment and encouragement of the greater secondary industries, particularly iron and steel, with every facility afforded by the Government for British firms to found here branches of their various enterprises. Thirdly, there is the simplification and improvement of marketing, in which both countries .concerned should participate. As to what measure of assistance should be given, much might be said. The fact remains, however, t-haty the great years of immigration into New Zealand were the years of free passages, and the British subsidy might well go that way, with 'corresponding help from this end and with the usual safeguards.