BOOT INDUSTRY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 275, 20 October 1937, Page 7

BOOT INDUSTRY

PLIGHT IN SOUTH. Per Press Association, CHRISTCHURCH, Oct. 19. . A. depressing picture of the conditions in the boot manufacturing industry in Christchurch was presented to the Minister of Labour (Hon. H. T. Armstrong) this morning when he visited two of the leading factories. The object of the Minister’s visit was to see at first-hand the difficulties confronting the industry in order to try and get at the root cause of the

trouble. He explained that the Government wanted to be sure that any steps it took to assist the industry were the right ones. The present slackness in trade, the Minister was told by the principals of the firms, had developed very suddenly. They were at a loss to account for such a sudden falling off >n onlm-v _'">t they did know that imports, particularly from Britain, had increased very substantially. ~ The manager of one factory said he thought his concern would be able to weather tlie storm, but to-day sixty men and fifteen women had been stood off for a day, and to-morrow twenty men and thirty women would be off for a day. In another factory the

amount paid out in weekly wages had dropped by £7O a week. ‘‘Our employees are losing wages, and we are losing the value of their production,” the manager remarked. It was impressed on the Minister that the conditions to-day wore much worse than they had been during the depression years, as orders were not coming in and stocks were accumulating. A manager mentioned the case of a man' who had asked to be dismissed because he would do better drawing sustenance . than working such short time at the factory. The Minister remarked that the Goyernment had the problem under consideration.