NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES

Evening Star, Issue 23130, 2 December 1938, Page 15

NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES

K; nin tDiKdi Sir, —J n your loader you oriticise tlio Government's methods to bring about expansion of industries li what you say is fuc, why was there not a continuous increase of industries providing work for a growing population, instead of depression and starvation in a young country like this during previous Governments that are supposed to have no socialistic aims? Vou talk about private enterprise. What does it do? Jt allows the rich people to form companies that exploit the public, for their own particular benefit, create multimillionaires who, because of their wealth, can even evade justice. That is what has happened in America and Britain, where there are over 1,000 multi-millionaires. To mo it seems that if the people’s wealth wa 3 more evenly divided there would be no room for millionaires or depression and starvation in a country that can and does produce the necessaries of life abundantly. With reference to wages and hours of work, this is a domestic undertaking to give a fair living wage in this country and to assist in providing work for all. Machinery has so reduced labour that it is necessary to t educe working hours so as to spread the available work over those who have to work for a living. With reference to the Manufacturers’ Federation Conference and the address of the chairman of the Mosgiel Woollen Factory Company, the fault is not so much the Government’s as the large warehouses and the large retail drapers in importing from abroad. Tariff protection will certainly help, but this is not enough. The Government should not allow retail firms to import, and should license all wholesale firms, so that all imports should bo governed by an import board. Then nothing need be brought into the country that would interfere with the employment of our own people; and if our imports are kept within our exports and the interest on the overseas public debt paid, wo have nothing to fear in the economic situation. Our coinage system should be completed by a New Zealand penny and halfpenny. With regard to new secondary industries, there is -nothing to prevent private enterprise from starting them, even at the present time, as is done in Canada and Australia; but we would probably find the promoters would be asking the Government for subsidies. In that event it should bo wiser for the Government to leave them alone, or, where possible, start new industries such as the manufacture of aeroplanes and rubber goods.—l am, etc., December 2. New Zealander.