LOCAL INDUSTRIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 156, 30 December 1944, Page 5

LOCAL INDUSTRIES

WARTIME PRODUCTION

•The war has emphasised the tremendous importance of the policy of fostering the growth of manufacturing industries," states the report of the Department of Industries and Commerce for 1943-44. "It is particularly gratifying to note the manner in which our manufacturers have risen to the occasion and have supplemented the United Nations* flow of goods, both for the Armed Forces and for essential civilian usage. In, many cases this has meant the sending overseas of New Zealand-made goods which had not previously been exported. All exported goods have had to measure up to a strict specification, and in general it can be said that the quality of our manufacture has borne most favourable comparison with the products of countries which have had the advantage of long experience in the manufacturing industries. "In addition to the manufacturing of standard lines for which we have the appropriate industries set up," the report adds, "many new lines have been undertaken with inadequate manufacturing facilities to fill in the gap before the arrival of goods on order overseas. This was particularly noticeable during the early years of the Avar, but problems of this nature still continue to crop up from time to time and constitute tests of ingenuity which in the main have-proved capable of solution by our industrial community. It is obvious that war shortages would have been more acute and the strain on shipping space would have been heavier if we had been without the plant and trained personnel which constitute the basis of our manufacturing power." Non-smokers are getting so scarce that the few remaining specimehs ought to be stuffed and sent to a museum. When one is discovered he is generally of opinion that people who smoke ought to be executed or something. He can no more understand the fascination that good tobacco has for the smoker than the chap who has. no "ear" can understand good music, or a blind person can appreciate a fine oil painting. Smoking makes his angry passions rise, arid he deplores the colddrawn truth that the consumption of the weed is growing by leaps and bounds every year. Especially marked is the" enormously increased demand tor th.c genuine "toasted," partly due to its splendid quality, and partly due to the fact that, being toasted and consequently practically free from nicotine, this matchless-tobacco is so harmless. Its daily use affords keen enjoyment to smokers everywhere, some of whose joys are few and far between, and who find in Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold, Desert Gold, and Pocket Edition the comfort and solace they crave.— Advt.