LOCAL MANUFACTURES.

Evening Star, Issue 12899, 23 August 1906, Page 2

LOCAL MANUFACTURES.

TO THE EDITOQ. Sir, —In your issue of the 18th uist. you published a report of interviews re local manufacturers, or, rather, the contempt with which they are treated. In the first place, your remarks arc oltogether one-sided, blaming the purchasing public absolutely for the existing state of affairs. It is generally recognised thai at least 75 por cent, of the purchasing public buy the goods recommended by the seller, yet with such a weighty percentage as this the retailers try to shove the load off their own shoulders on to the shoulders of the workers, who are really the manufacturers of the colony, and who seldom have their minda set upon,what class of article they are going to buy until they are face to face with it in the shop. Certainly, they are indifferent, but few are prejudiced against our local manufactures, while, on the other hand, I will give you two instances of the spirit shown and exercised by our leading business men. (1) The head of one large firm, entering a department of a local warehouse, asked • to bo shown certain goods, adding: "I don't want any of your ■ —-~ colonial stuff." Hia remark, sir, I am pleased to be able to state, was nothing short of prejudice, as all level-minded folk agree that our local goods in this particular line are finished as Mat and stronger than the imported. (2) A man entered another shop and asked to be fitted with a hat (colonial) The shopman set about to fit the customer, wiho after having got one to suit asked : " Was this rMde in Dunedin?" "Oh, no," replied tn© shopman, "1 get all my hats made in England exoressly to my order." "Well," anaw&red the would-be customer, "until you can sell me New Zealand 'goods 1 cannot buy from you." With regard to. local manufactures, I am delighted to be able to say that we have at least two woollen mills in Otago I the prodnctß of which are equal.in every J way to the imported article', and to a great number of retailers who are prejudiced against local goods the products of these two mills .are as imported. I might say that I have it from the best | authority that warehousemen would sooner sell the local article, but the retailers | blackball it to a great extent. From a | previous statement it proves to all that it I is not^ because the retailers are capable of dfiteo6J3?*j«? i£f<*ikißr texture in our^ioo* 1

article; therefore it is nothing short of out-and-out. blackballing. But there is a remedy for this, and I appeal to the workers, through the medium of their trades unions, to pass resolutions binding themselves ,to buy nothing but Now Zealand -manufactured goods. By so doing they would- do .more for their fellowbeings than they , could by any ; other means. Further; they would .ultimately bo doing more for themselves than they could in any other way, for if -the employees in ono trade are employed regularly throughout the year they are. able to buy more of the products of other trades. Such an action as. this would be the means of the of larger manufacturing businesses in this colony, and "God's Own Country" would flourish in every possible way. Surely we are not always going to be content at. manufacturing only the roughest of goods, and sending here, there, and. everywhere for the finer classes of manufactures. —I am, etc., R.R.D. August 21.