The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 1925. INDUSTRIES AND COMMERCE.

Evening Star, Issue 19021, 17 August 1925, Page 6

The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 1925. INDUSTRIES AND COMMERCE.

The Department of Industries and Commerce has had an exceptionally busy .year, its routine work being supplemented by the reopening of tbo 'Wembley Exhibition,, preparation for tho New Zealand and South Sens Exhibition at Dunedin, and tho purchase and distribution of nearly four million bushels of wheat from Australia to make up tho shortage from tho last New Zealand harvest. Of this latter transaction and of tho association of tho Government with the wheat and milling industries tho annual departmental report contains a summary, naturally of a self-congratulatory tenor. There is justification for this, for as markets turned out the New Zealand Government bought well. Tho imported wheal was sold to millers at from 5s 7-Jd to 5s lUjd per Imshol, though atone time it would have cost no less than 7s 3d f.o.h. Australian ports, with freight and other charges additional, had the hand-to-mouth system of buying been adopted. Thus Now Zealand was for months unaffected by tho increase in world prices. Tho department’s estimate of the saving to the public of tho dominion from tho Government’s forward purchases at low prices is estimated as at least £200,000 for the whole year. (The total quantity of wheat purchased in 1924 and early in 1925 was 3,837,679 bushels, for which £977,782 was paid, tho department selling it for £1,161,000.) It may, perhaps, he ungracious, in regard to tho departmental statement that “tho accounts could, by only a slight increasing of the selling prices, have boon made to show appreciable profits,” to add that, as tho Government took to itself a monopoly in this business, prohibiting any importation but its own, such a proceeding,would have been, to put it very mildly, an extremely bad example of what it. has taken exception to in others, oven to the point of legal prosecution. It is extremely likely that similar operations will fall to the lot of 'this department for yet another year. As the report states: “The difficulties met with in tho dominion during 1924 are unfortunately to bo repeated this current year. The estimated area in wheat for the present year’s harvest is 170,000 acres, and the Government Statistician considers that the total yield for tho dominion will approximate 5,000,000 bushel?-, as against an actual yield of 4,174,000 bushels for tho season 1923-24.” It is to he hoped that, should tho Government undertake importation, good fortune will again attend its purchasing, and that incidental difficulties in shipment, due to bad weather conditions in winter and to Australian shipping labor disputes, will not recur, or that delays will be overcome as successfully as in tho past, for supplies were maintained in advance of manufacturing requirements. There is, however, sound reason for tho departmental warning that tho danger of industrial difficulty in the transport of this essential foodstuff is one of tho strongest reasons for urging that tho dominion should bo self-contained in the matter of wheat supplies. It is really a sounder reason than that advanced in another part of the report dealing with imports and exports and the need for maintaining a favorable trade balance. “ It is much to be regretted that the dominion should be forced to buy from abroad such essential commodities as wheat, oats, coal, and soft-wood timbers. . . . If prices for our leading

lines of export continue to decline it will be essential tlmt we should rely more on our own resources, and use every possible means to increase the production of such commodities as wheat, oats, and coal.” It has to be remembered that land formerly cropped has not gone out of production, but is being used to produce something that pays better, thereby swelling our exports by more than the amount paid in tile importation to replace the shortage. Should prices for our leading lines of export decline sufficiently there will be a reversion to cropping. These matters right themselves. As to coal and softwood timbers, there appears to ho something wrong with our costs of production. With reference to the latter commodity, one inference is that in an open market our production might not survive, and production at a loss is hardly worth having.

While preserving a strong attitude against the importation to an increasing extent of commodities easily procurable in the dominion, as befits a. department one of whose statutory responsibilities is helping the development and progress of our secondary industries, the report draws regretful attention to the fact that the imports from Britain show a decline relatively to the total imports of the past two years. In 1924 the percentage bought from Britain was 47.5 per cent., as compared with 51.9 per cent, in 1923. Imports from the United States kept in exact proportion to the dominion’s whole inward trade, remaining each year at 16 per cent, of the total. Tho most notable increases in imports wore those from Australia (from 8.4 to 11.6 percent., due largely to the wheat movement) and Canada (from 6.8 to 8.2 per cent., the chief reason for which is perceptible on our roads at any time)'. Thus Empire trade has not suffered any rebuff at New Zealand’s hands. As to our own secondary industries, a long list is given showing the amounts paid during the • last year for purchases abroad, totalling £5,733,000, all of thorn articles of a kind manufactured in New Zealand. Prominent in that list

aro apparel and ready-made clothing £2,000,000, and woollen piece goods £900,000, and boots and shoes £900.000. Yet an appendix to tho report states that “tho clothing industry, like the bootmaking industry, is passing through a period of depression, and during last winter a great many of the factories were working only part time. There is plenty of labor available in all

centres for this industry. The present tendency is for slackening of operations, with consequent partial unemployment that will only bo alleviated by a greater demand for locally-made wearing apparel.” However, in 90 per cent, of tho secondary industries a hopeful tone, with prospects good, is reported. As to new industries, that claiming chief attention is undoubtedly the production of pig iron at tho Onakaka works, Golden Bay. Last year the output was about 1,000 tons of first-grade pig iron, which all tho dominion foundries reported as being of excellent quality. New plant is beigg installed expected to produce 11,000 tons per annum. “ This company,” states the report, “ will be ablo to turn out the whole of the dominion’s requirements.” Other items of interest aro the great extension of tho margarine industry, the preparations for the local packing of benzine and other oils to ho imported in bulk, and the preparations for the establishment of a section of tho cutlery industry by prospective migrants from Britain. Besides reprimanding the apathy of the public towards local manufactures, the report also censures traders for their apathy to certain outside markets near at hand. This is to somo extent being dispelled in one case by the North Island preliminaries to oijcn up trade with Java. But tho department is informed that for every commercial representative of New Zealand who visits Fiji, the Cook Islands, and Samoa there are at least seven trade representatives from Australia. In 192*1 out of Samoa’s total imports of £274,803 Australia supplied £99,443 and New Zealand £87,541, but tho anticipation is made that Australian and American enterprise will make it difficult for New Zealand to hold its present trade unless our commercial interests show more initiative. As to the Fiji trade, the report quotes a list of goods totalling £109,820 supplied by Australia which Now Zealand could conveniently and competitively supply, whereas tho dominion was content with a modest £11,962 in these linos—a return cargo of very small dimensions compared with what is shipped from. Fiji to New Zealand.