INDUSTRIAL SITUATION

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 30 August 1926, Page 10

INDUSTRIAL SITUATION

A TIME OF LOW PRODUCTION

“STAGNATION OF OUTPUT.”

(ISV TKI-KUKAPH I*HKSS ASSOCIATION.) DUNEDIN, Aug. 27. In his review of the year at the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. F. M. Shortt, the -retiring president, -stated that- the most ominous fact- in New Zealand industry' was the stagnation of output. With all the modern appliances and education the country was producing per capita no more than 15 years ago, he said. New Zealand's' best- -productive year since- the beginning of the. century was 1910-11. Taking that year’s volume per bead -as represented by the figure 1000, in 1915-16 production had fallen to .980, while in 192021 it was down to 805, from winch point it had risen again in 1923-24 to 945. The general indication was that the country was not- producing as much per head as 15 years- ago, and that f/om 1918 to 1922 the volume of production was astonishingly low. Mi'. Shortt added: “It is quite possible that the best thing, that could happen, in this country is a period offal ling pieces such as our fathers had to contend with in the eighties. New Zealand has so many physical advantages, so much in the wav of fine, wholesome -social conditions, that it would be a thousand pities if wo deluded ourselves into depending on the chance of always securing high prices- in London, or developed the spendthrift idea of raising a- loan overseas whenever we are hard up. So- far as can be seen we have come to the end of high prices.”