Grey River Argus and Blackball News FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1922. NEGLECT OF OUR SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

Grey River Argus, 21 July 1922, Page 4

Grey River Argus and Blackball News

FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1922. NEGLECT OF OUR SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

Delivered every mo. ning In Gr. »uth K Hokit’ka, D >‘? •m, Wallsend, Taylo./ille, Ngahcrs. B • all, N.clson Creek, Brunner, T® Kinghg }<■. .to . .anu. Poerua, Inchbonnie, Patara, Hutu. Kajm-i'.a. Kotukv- Moana, Aratika, Bunanga Dunollie, Cobden, Baxters, Kokiri. Ahaura. Ikarnatua, Stidwaler, XVamta, Reef ton, Ross. Ruatapua, Mananut Hari H. .t. Waiho Gorge, Weheka, RewanuL Otira. liuingabiia Junction. Westport. Waimangaroa, Denniston, Granity. Millerton. Ngakawau. Hector, Sedd juvilLi, Cape Foulwind, and

i in the name of economy, our landowners 7 Government continues to negI lect the Dominion’s secondary industi ries. All our eggs are kept in one basket, and that is why the fall of prices for land products has hit the country so hard. It is not at all economical to spend 30 or 40 millions sterling, like the Government has done since the war, in buying land and stock and other things while the country’s manufacturing possibilities are left so grossly neglected and unexplored. The idea has been inculcated that Imperialism decrees for New Zealand the destiny of a market garden. Thd Empire Exhibition Mission here lately talked of getting our raw materials in larger quantities to be put through the manufacturing process at the other side of the world, but it is a recognised fact that small and all as our secondary industries are yet, more than half of the workers of the country aro in manufacturers’ employ, and nothing like as many are employed on the land if the landowners themselves arc exc-cptcd. Let the improvements in agricultural appliances and methods go on for a generation, and let our exports of primary products increase three-fold, and yet the country cannot thereby absorb the 10,000 immigrants which the Government expect and will encourage to come here yearly. When the industries committee went round the

country some time ago, there was a Department of Industries set up, but it is being now retrenched, and its work has hardly begun. If the Department of Agriculture were treated likewise, the ” backbone” of the country would set up a hue and cry. On the West Coast, the progress leagues and such bodies seem inclined to remain in a rut. They talk of mining or milling, or railways, but little about developing our secondary industrial resources, such as paper manufacture, or the utilisation of milling and min-

ing bye-products. No doubt some day a stranger will come along and begin extracting wood alcohol from our saw-

dust, and dyes, and other marketable commodities from coal. The Empire Exhibition Mission is going to get a quarter of a million of money in value from the Dominion for its London project, ami this shows how much alive the people aro to the need for such enterprise in the Old Country. New Zealand, however, should be the best possible market for our primary products, and an increase in the secondary industries must vastly increase that market.