OUR INDUSTRIES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 129, 5 June 1929, Page 12

OUR INDUSTRIES

EFFICIENCY QUESTIONED

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.")

DUNEDIN, This Day

• "Can you say the secondary industries are boing run economically or efficiently?" asked.Mr. D. M'G. Reid when presiding at; thp annual meeting yesterday of the Qtagp : Provincial Council of-the New Zealand Farmers > Union." Can they .produce at a price which permits their goods to be sold to compete in .the, world's markets? With all! tho protection ,the industries; are making . slow progress. There are" cases where such industries work a maximum^ of five days'of eight hours a week, and some probably less. How can .they hope ',to compete with similar industries ' of other countries working twenty-four' hours, a clay? Their overhead is greater and they are 6ver-capitalised. Manufacturers to be efficient must work to capacity, but if they do how are, they to ' market their surplus which is' produced at a cost greater than, the' competitive article that is imported and has freights and protection costs added'to: it? Is thisefficiency? Efficiency should be one of'the conditions of protection, while in return for ' protection the industry protected should have to supply the Government with full information as regards its xosts and . prices. Their costs of production are too high, and the same fact is strangling the primary producer. Protection is one of the causes of these high costs. Wo realise that, there - contributing factors which accentuate this' alarming problem of high costs, for instance the effect of Arbitrat ion.-. Court awards.''