SECONDARY INDUSTRIES

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12095, 24 March 1925, Page 4

SECONDARY INDUSTRIES

IN PARLOUS CONDITION RESTRICTIONS, SHORTER HOURS, LESS PRODUCTION. WHAT OF THE FUTURE? Mr L. R. Partridge, last year’s president of the Wellington Industrial Association, is not very optimistic regarding the future prospects of the New Zealand secondary industries, which he describes as being just now in a very parlous condition. He did not think even the Government fully realised their position, for although they had certain figures returned through the statistical office, those figures were in the main records of maintenance and repair, not of manufactures. The wool manufacturing industry was not doing well, as was indicated by the fact that one of the leading companies paid no dividend last year. Engineering people were doing less manufacturing and were selling more imported machines, as they Cannot, under present conditions, compete with English and American goods. MANUFACTURERS TO MERCHANTS. A great many firms in secondary industries are now becoming more merchants than manufacturers. In his own business, the largest manufacturing jeweller’s m the Dominion, he once employed 28 men, but now he only had seven, being more largely engaged as a merchant. “Yet I was always prouder of being a manufacturer than I shall ever he of being a merchant.” He attributed the parlous state of secondary industries to apprenticeship restrictions, the shorter hours and less production, although he was not an advocate of small wages. The trouble was that the rate of production had not even been maintained with the shorter hours and increased wages, and these were having an alarming effect on the industries. FOR PROSPERITY. Unless the Government took steps to put on larger protective duties or the trades unions eased labour restrictions it would he impossible to employ more meni in those industries, yet it was a fact; that a country which depended entirely on its primary industries did not continue to prosper, a fact which he had painted out to Mr Massey. “All is Uot well with the secondary industries of New Zealand, and the Government and the trades unions know it,” he added. Mr Partridge eulogised the efforts made by the department to assist the secondary industries, and spoke very highly of the Secretary of the Department, Mr J: W. Collins, whom he described as a “very live wire.”