DAIRY AND MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 149, 25 May 1934, Page 5

DAIRY AND MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES

A COMPARISON. In addressing a recent meeting in Dunedin, Mr A. Mander, secretary to the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation, made tho following references to the dairy and manufacturing industries : “We have all heard that dairying is our ‘essential’ industry, that the dairy farmers are the ‘backbone’ of the country: and many people seem to imagine that the manufacturing industries are quite small and unimportant compared with the primary industry of dairy farming. Well, would it surprise you to learn that, in the last year for which official figures are available, there were almost exactly the same number of persons engaged in the manufacturing industries as there were ill dairy farming? You will find the figures on page 371 of the 1932 Year Book. There were 46,800 males and 10,700 females engaged in dairy farming—that is, both farmers and workers (including members of the farmers’ own families). Add another 8000 for the dairying portion (half) of those engaged partly in dairying and partly in sheep and cattle raising. Then you have a total of nearly 66,000 directly engaged in the dairyfarming industry. “And in the same year there were just over 66,000 persons engaged in the manufacturing industries. “It is rather interesting also to compare the value of the manufactured goods ‘made in New Zealand’ with the exports of dairy produce. We can take the same year, 1929, before the great slump in export prices. The value of our exports of butter and cheese is given in the 1932 Year Book (page 813) as approximately £20.250,000. In the same year we produced manufactured goods worth £35,750,000; while the total value the products of the secondary was over £43,000,000. Even deducting the cost of raw material, the ‘added value’ alone was nearly £25,000,000 —which itself was greater than the value of the whole of the produce of the dairy farms and dairy factories of the Dominion.

“We find, then, that in 1929-30, the last year before the slump, there were as many persons engaged in manufacturing as there were in dairy farming; and the manufacturing industries produced actually more value, a larger contribution to the national income, than the whole of the dairying industry. “I have chosen that particular year for the comparison because it is the latest year for which w r e have official sta.tistics of the number of persons engaged in farming. But, incidentally, it is the most favourable year to the dairying industry, the year in which our exports of dairy produce reached their record value. Coming to the year 1932, our butter and cheese exports then realised only £15,590,000. while the products of secondary industries were valued at £30,900.000 (added value £17,100,000). Finally, in 1933. we exported £16,416,000 butter and cheese, while manufacturing industries produced goods valued £30,090,000 (added value £16,200,000). “These comparisons make us realise that the manufacturing industries ure alreadv at least as important to New Zealand as the dairying industry—from the standpoints both of the number of persons engaged, and also the value of their contribution to the production of our national wealth.