DOMINION INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19418, 28 August 1926, Page 12

DOMINION INDUSTRY.

STAGNATION IN OUTPUT. DEPENDENCE ON HIGH PRICES.[BX TELEGRAPH.— PRESS ASSOCIATION.] DTOEDIN. Friday. ' In a review of the year at the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. F. M. Shortt, the retiring president, stater] that the most ominous fact in New Zealand industry was the stagnation- of output. With all our modern appliances . and education, he said, Ve were producing, per capita, no more than we were 25 yearl ago. Our best productive year since the beginnuia of thp century was 1910-11. Taking that year's volume, per head as represented by the figure 1000, we were told that in 1915-16 production had fallen to SBO. while in 1920-21 it was down to 805, from which point it had risen a sain in 1923-24 to 945. The general indication was that we were not producing as much per head as we were 15 years ago, and that from 1918 to 1922 the volume of pro duction was astonishingly low. Mr. Shortt added that it was quite possible the best thing to happen to this : country would be a period of ~ falling prices, such as our fathers had to contend with in the 'eighties. New Zealand had so many physical advantages, so much'in the wav of fine, wholesome social conditions, that it would hp a thousand pities if we deluded ourselves into depending on the chance of always having high prices in London, or developed the spendthrift idea of -raising a /loan overseas whenever we were "hard up." "So far as, can be seen, wo have come to the end of high prices in London," he said; *