BOOT MANUFACTURING

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7301, 3 December 1910, Page 7

BOOT MANUFACTURING

SOMETHING MOEB ABOUT "SHODDY." (To the Editor "N.Z. Times,") Sir, —In your issue of Thursday morning's "Times” appears the copy of a letter which had been published by the Christchurch morning papers and sighed by Mr G. A. Froshck. ex-president of the New Zealand Boot Manufacturers’ Federation, and Mr Wm. Williams, preeident of the Boot Operatives’ Federation. Since Mr T. E. Taylor woa returned to Parliament last election, he has suffered many attacks which hare been the outcome of political prejudice, but none have been so glaring and none so invidious as the letter above referred to. Mr Taylor’s remarks aro paraphrased as |

follows:—"Mr Taylor says that the working man has been Imposed upon inascandalous manner, because tho boots which are made in this country aro absolutely fraudulent, the insides being made of cardboard." What Mr Taylor did say, as reported in your issue of Tuesday, is as follows:—“Ho had a duplicate set of materials now being built into boots of tho working class. Tho goods were absolutely fraudulent. portions of tho boots were pure cardboard." Further on ho said that these boots were sold in competition with boots of “high quality," naturally inferring that tho "high quality" article was also made in New Zealand.

It will easily bo observed how, unjust is the attack on Mr'Taylor. It is quite unwarranted, and can only be for the purpose of turning against him tho bootmakers who happen to live in his electorate.

Everybody who knows.Mr Taylor knows there Is no more patriotic public man in this Dominion, and to misinterpret his public utterances for political motives is something X feel sure tho members.of tho Boot Operatives' Federation will demand an explanation of. They are entitled to know the reasons which prompted their president to allow his name to be attached to the letter in question. Mr Frostick has managed to get a splendid advertisement gratis for the efficiency of tho Boot Manufacturers Federation’s produce, but Mr Taylor was speaking of ''boots," not, tho “boots made in Now Zealand." This is just whore the inference referred to is a misrepresentation of what Mr Taylor meant. Whether the boots referred to by^him are made in factories under the ''control’’ of the Boot Manufacturers’ Federation is not the point upon which controversy should proceed. That they are made is a fact well known to bootmakers generally, and they are made in factories under the “control" of and subject to tho laws of this Dominion. If Mr Frostick and Mr Williams will dispute that boots are made in. Now Zealand which contain cardboard and other inferior substitutes for leather I am nrepnred tq defend Mr Taylor and prove his contention right up to the hut. Taking tho percentage referred to by Mr Frostick —under five —-and putting it at four, and, estimating the manufactured boots and shoes at a million pairs per annum, then if 1 per cent, of this quantity contains material other than leather—shoddy—then the public is , being deceived lo tho extent of 40,000 pairs per annum. That quantity alone surely justifies Mr Taylor iu making the statement ho did. Your report of Mr Taylor’s remarks was followed by tho remarks ol Mr Arnold, M.P. for Dunedin Central, and were as follows:—"He said he knew that a very large number of ; boots were manufactured (not in Dunedin) of cardboard and other shoddy material. . - . Surely this, is only corroborative ot the assertions made by Mr Taylor by one possessed of practical knowledge, practical experience and practical ability and yet Mr ■ Frostick and Mr Williams make not the slightest reference to him nor what he said. Knowing Mr Williams as I do, I cannot imagine how he has been, inveigled into attaching his signature to a letter which, is nothing but an insidious attempt to defame tho fair name of labour's ablest advocate in the Parliament of this Dominion. —X am, etc., DAVID K. MUTCH ADD. December 2nd.