CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18357, 24 March 1923, Page 11

CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE.

RAISING THEIR STATUS.

UNITY AND COHESION URGED

[BT TEXEOBAPH. —OWN COBBEffiPONDENT.j CHRISTCHTJECH. Friday. At the quarterly meeting of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, the president, Mr. E. H. Wylie, referring to the amalgamation of trade associations concerning which a resolution at the Dunedin conference was carried, said he thought that possibly Chambers of Commerce in this Dominion, had not fully appreciated trj 'importance of the position that they should hold, and had in the past been too critical of discussing or taking up matters which they might have thought did not coem within their perview. The result had been that associations and organisations in connection with industry and trade had sprung up and j were necessarily taking an ; independent line of '. action in their own interest for the reason that they did not look to the Chamber of Commerce to support the interests 'for. which those associations and organisations had been formed. His • opinion was that the Chamber "' of Commerce should be the ! one central and parent " body of , other organisations, whether they affected industry, trade, or commerce.; Industry 'and commerce in this Dominion were so interwoven that what affected industries must affect commerce. At any rate they had such interests in common as to make it fit that they should be considered as one great whole in the general', business life of New Zealand. -The chamber constituted -as he suggested would mean cohesion and unity, which in itself was the very strength which - was required if industrialists and commercial men were to get their rights properly- respected by the Government. At the- present time, however, there waa little if any unity among the associations. There was certainly --o cohesion. There was an 'immense amount of overlapping and unnecessary expense, and there was no solid, representation of the industrial and commercial interests of the Dominion or of any' district being put before the Government in a combined shape. Ther* never was a time when it was "more necessary for industrial and commercial associations of this Dominion to insist upon their rights, and to be' heard and to have their combined opinions respected before legislation was passed which vitally affected, their interests, but. they • would never attain that end Unless there was unity. The Chamber of Commerce, with all other organisations attached to it as committees representing their own special industries or tildes, and with a general executive representative of the whole, was the .one thing which members of the chamber should do everything in their power to bring about. The chambers at the present time did not take their proper part in the interests of the industrial and trading- communities of this Dominion.