ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1917. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

Marlborough Express, Volume LI, Issue 230, 28 September 1917, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1917. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

The plea made by Mr J. A. Frostick, lately Commissioner for Canterbury on the National Efficiency Board, for the more, vigorous development of the Dominion's secondary industries has . attracted widespread attention. Those who read Mr Frostick's discussion of the subject in "his interview with the Lyttelton Times, will remember that, while not discounting the preponderating value of the primary products, he alleged and deprecated the existence of a common disposition to underestimate the relative importance of the manufacturing industries. With the aid of the latest census figures, he went to some pains to show. that more than half the.', community were directly or indirectly dependent on the secondary industries, his exact reckoning being that 420,075 persons were embraced by the agricultural and pastoral interests, and 588,393" were dependent upon other interests. The contention was that Parliament should without delay create an additional portfolio —that of Minister for Industries, whose whole time would be devoted to the promotion of industries in exactly the same way, and for tho same reason, that the Minister for Agriculture works in behalf of his Department.

Mr Frostick miist be given credit for conceding that the activity exercised by the State for the benefit and assistance of the farming classes should not only be maintained, but also improved and rendered more perfect; but it is questionable whether his assessment of the relative value of the secondary or manufactui'ing industries at the present stage of the Dominion's development would bear close examination. We are inclined to think, with the Farmers' Union Advocate, that in analysing the occupations of the people he has not differentiated accurately between workers in secondary industries and industrial workers who may be as much, if not more, attached to agriculture and to commerce as to the secondary industries. The view that the Advocate takes of Mr Frostick's propositions is of considerable interest, as it indicates the attitude of "the backbone of the country." The farmers' journal says: "One of the worst features of the social and economic movements in this Dominion has been the drift from the country to the towns, and, though we cannot blame the secondary industries for it, there is little doubt that the endeavor to create secondary industries before we were ready for them has contributed to this regrettable tendency. . . . It should be our aim to maintain our national prosperity on the basis of primary production and encourage by all legitimate means the closer settlement of our lands, and strive to concentrate the people's thought on this form of wealth production, which, so far as New Zealand is concerned, is both the healthiest and the most profitable. We cannot do without secondary industries, and due consideration must be given to those which are complementary to agriculture; but extreme caution is required in seeking to develop secondary industries prematurely." The Advocate sympathises with Mr Frostick's case' to the extent of advocating the establishment of a Board of Trade, one of whose functions would be to assist in developing the secondary industries, and in emphasising the need for scientific research in tho realms of manufacture.

Judging from newspaper correspondence, the claim made by Mr Frostick for what he calls the functional parts of the entire body of which the agricultural and pastoral classes constitute the backbone is regarded in some quarters with a good deal more- suspicion than the farmers' journal has cared to express. One writer declares that a movement is on foot amongst manufacturers to pave the way for an increase in the tariff burden against .the interests of the general consuming public. For ourselves, while subscribing freely to the sentiments of the rural school of thought, we believe that Mr Frostick's motives are patriotic rather than selfish or class-seeking. In its broad aspect the appeal he has made for the encouragement of manufacturing enterprise is worthy of respect as pointing to a very desirable and promising direction, which it would be unwise to continue ignoring indefinitely. The cause he is championing would be greatly promoted and quickened by a more popular policy of closer land settlement. At the present time that is tlie. most effective means of widening out and strengthening the basis of nafiotial prosperity and leading up to a soiMid .and adequate system of complementary activities. A more helpful plan af attaching the people j to tho soil is tho paramount need of the day, and it would not serve the interests of tne country to divert its main energies from that essential purpose.