FOSTERING INDUSTRIES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 223, 21 August 1931, Page 2

FOSTERING INDUSTRIES.

DOMINION' MANUFACTURES. Per Press Association. ■WELLINGTON, Aug. 21. Matters of interest to manufacturers xvere referred to by Air G. Finn (Auckland) president, at the New Zealand Manuracturers’ Federation Conference. . He said that about one-third or the tooulation in xbe Dominion at the present time was entirely dependent ior a living on manufacturing industries. which had a verv important bearing on the general welfare of xhe Dominion. --Last year had been one of the most difficult and the most momentous in the history or tne country,” he said. ‘‘•l am hoping that wnen the request for the setting up of a Development- or Industries Board has been given enect to some of the handicaps we .have iaoonred under in the part will disappear, and the new industries for which the Dominion is languishing, will be encouraged. New Zealand cannot- be allowed to become the dumping ground for the surplus products of other countries when we have the labour and the means of producing them ourselves. The only sure and certain market for our primary products is. our local market." This must be protected by ensuring to New Zealand the manufacture, as possible, of goods which it requires to satisfy its own neecis. •’This does not mean a total cessation of imports. On the contrary, the more we progress and the ■core people we can employ the greater cecomes our : need of machinery for _ raw material! and other goods for which the older ; countries have established a partial j monopoly. ‘■Fostering of local industry does not only mean more employment for our people, which is badly needed, but it also means keeping money in cir- ] culation in the country and a gradual j ouilding up of our financial resources.” USE OF TRADE MARK. WELLINGTON, Aug. 21. At the conference of Dominion manufacturers yesterday, the Minister of Industries and Commerce, Hon. P. A. de la Perrelle, said he approved of the idea of a New Zealand trade mark, but urged that- articles must- be of first-class quality which could command sales abroad and so increase the demand for New Zealand productions. He believed there was a great opportunity in New Zealand to materially increase the sales of New Zealand-pro-, duced articles, and the use of a New i Zealand trade mark would tend to create a preference for them. The: department was anxious to combine with the manufacturers in that mat-: ter. j

It would give some idea of what the secondary industries meant when he pointed out that they employed 55,000 New Zealanders, and for the year ended March 31. 1930, paid in wages £10.256.000. As time went c-n those figures should be materially increased, because there were in the Dominion many products which could be_ converted into saleable articles. New Zealand was a long way from other markets, which was a handicap to the primarv products, so it was essential that the highest Quality of goods should be placed on the market.