CONTROL OF INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 93, 17 October 1934, Page 12

CONTROL OF INDUSTRY

'•TEN DEPARTMENTS"

MANUFACTURERS' VIEWS

UNIFICATION URGED

The economic position of the Dominion from tlio point of view of manufacturing interests was discussed by I .Mr. A. E. Mandcr, general secretary of the New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation, in an address given at iho annual meeting of the Wellington Manufacturers' Association last evening. Mr. W. McLay presided over an excellent attendance. Referring to the connection between the Government and industry Mr. Mander said that there were "a multitude of independent, overlapping, often mutually jealous and conflicting, and altogether unco-ordiuated Government departments at present playing around industries." There was the Industries and Commerce Department, which the speaker described as a weak and relatively unimportant body which seemed to be chiefly engaged in a rain effort to hold its position against the encroachments of the Customs Department. The Customs Department itself had largely succeeded in elbowing its way into the position which should be occupied by an efficient Department of Industries. It was a department not designed, equipped, or qualified to understand industrial problems and yet it had worked itself into the position of giving advice to the Government even on questions of the technical efficiency of complex processes of industrial production. There wore also the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research and a particularly futile body known as the Development of Industries Committee, which had not met even once during the current year. The Unemployment Board had a special fund of £250,000 for the assistance of newindustries, but was without any equipment for qualification to investigate proposed now industries or form a sound judgment on their prospects of . success. INSPECTORS CRITICISED. The Marine Department also eaino into the picture, as it was responsible for the inspection of factory machinery. Its powers dated from the time when most factories used steam plant, but the inspection of electric motors at the present time was a mere farce. The seventh department inspecting factories was the Labour Department, and severe criticism could be- directed at the way in which it operated. Apparently, said Mr. Mander, its inspec- ■ tors visited factories where conditions were good, looking for trivial infringements, but ignoring workshops and workrooms where wages and conditions were definitely sub-standard. A branch of the Labour Department was responsible for certain duties which should obviously be performed by the Department of Industries, such, for instance, as the inspection of boots' and shoes to ensure that the soles were all leather. There was the Government Statistician's office with its insatiable appetite for reports, returns, and statistics, many of which, from their method of compilation, were useless and even misleading. There- was also the Statesubsidised Standards Institute. Was it not evident, asked Mr. Mander, that these departments should be unified under a single head so that one department instead of ten could be entrusted with all the functions of the Government in relation to manufacturing industries? END OF A CHAPTER. Touching on the industrial oxpansion of the Dominion, Mr. Mander said that New Zealand had reached the end of the second chapter in its economic history. Tho first chapter ended about 1890 when the introduction of refrigeration changed the whole life of the colony and made possible the development of meat production and afterwards dairy farming. Since- then the second chapter had told a story of enormous expansion in New Zealand's export trade. Our exports of frozen meat had grown from 750 tons to 230,000 tons annually, and of butter and cheese from 750 tons to 200,000 tons. Meanwhile the population had approximately trebled. In tho same period, however, the Public Debt had increased tenfold, the great bulk of it being incurred to assist the development of tho farm industries and their export trade. It now seemed that New Zealand had reached the limit of expansion in the ■ exportation of meat and dairy produce. , Yet N<o: Zealand could not stop her development, and the most urgent need ■ today was for a very much more rapid increase of population. Indeed, at least the doubling of the present population as quickly as possible. "If tho primary industries have practically reached their limit,"-said Mr. Mandcr, "it is time now for the Dominion to turn to the deliberate fos- , tering of manufacturing industry. To- ] day the manufacturing industries ask - for tho opportunity not merely to main- f tain but to expand our industries, to j give more employment, to increase tho spending power of the public, to enlargo the volume of production, and thus to carry into its next stage the histtfry of New Zealand's development. ''