CHRISTCHURCH

New Zealand Mail, 22 January 1902, Page 43

CHRISTCHURCH

(By Telegraph—Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, January IG. Mr J. A. Frostiek, whose opinions on labour matters are much respected throughout the colony, and who is one of tho leading lights of the Employers’ Association, expressed himself with considerable force at the annual dinner of the New Zealand Boot .Manufacturers’ Federation last evening when proposing tho toast of “ New Zealand Industries and Commerce.” He said he would like to impress upon their legislators that figures gathered from the returns quoted were absolutely misleading. They were quite able to face competition, and hoped to hold their own. They were not grumbling at the wages paid, and even thought, the employees ought to get more, but they wanted to manage their own businesses. He believed that, with two or three exceptions, they had the best Factory Act in the world. Tho success of industries must be built up by the success of individuals. It was essential that the producers from tho soil should be successful. They were all dependent on each other, and must get past the consideration cf individual benefit and profit without posing as

philanthropists. They must take care not to do anything to injure others. They should insist on a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, and he thought that Parliament had been going a little too far in one direction. Industries and commerce were inseparably associated, and must assist each other for mutual welfare. The gathering was remarkable for the optimistic views expressed by the majority of the speakers concerning the colony’s manufactures. Atrial of a new method of defrosting carcases of sheep will take place to-mor-row morning. The advantages claimed for the process are simplicity and cheapness; the defrosting of sheep, or lambs in from four to eight hours; retaining all the freshness of newly-killed meat; the obviating of discolouration and decomposition; the enabling of the butcher to order his frozen meat supply on the preceding night. Mr W. Reece, the well-known merchant, and late Mayor of Christchurch, who has just returned from a tour of England, the Continent and America, has been asked by a “ Times ” representative how he found the feeling existing between England and Germany. Mr Reece said that during his visit to Germany, unless he introduced the subject of the Boer war for the purpose of ascertaining their opinions, he saw no evidence of any feeling against the English by the Germans or any of the other Continental nations. The general opinion expressed to him by Germans was that England had incited the Boers until they were forced into commencing the war. Before expressing any opinion as to the wisdom or otherwise of the boycotting of German goods, Mr Reece said he would like to know whether the German Government was responsible for the utterances of the press.