Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 15 July 1939, Page 6

Readers Write

[Readers are invited to send letters f for publication in this Column, ! A letter should be written in ink‘, on one side of the paper, and | must bear the name of the writer,} not necessarily for publication, j but as a guarantee of good faith.l ] Speaking on the Address-in-Reply; in the House this week, the newi member for Tauranga emphasised thei determination of the;

CASE FOR SECONDARY INDUSTRIES.

Minister o£ Agricul-' lure In Britain to 1 make that country as nearly as possible self-

contained in the matter of foodstuffs, which means that New Zealand’s exports of primary produce must be reduced, rather than increased. This is a staggering thought, and surely justifies the policy of encouraging the growth of secondary industries in New Zealand. With hundreds of thousands of acres still hardly scratched, we have apparently not only reached, but passed, the production which can be assimilated by the Old Country, and we are not going to submit to stagnation. By accepting arbitrary limitation of our pastoral and agricultural production, without doing anything to rectify the position, would mean ruination, not only to the overseas bondholder, but to our farmers as well. If the British market is to be curtailed —and there seems little doubl but that it will—we will always have a surplus of farm produce above what we can export. Surely the most rational way to dispose of this is to consume the output within the country, and that can only be done by building up secondary industries, and establishing a much larger artisan population than we have at present.— “TOWNSMAN.”