N.Z. IRON INDUSTRY

Otago Witness, Issue 2929, 4 May 1910, Page 18

N.Z. IRON INDUSTRY

A MORIBUND CONDITION. REVISED TARIFF WANTED. (From- Our Own Correspondent.' AUCKLAND, April 25. The present stagnant state of the iron industry was clearly indicated by a tour of inspection made on Saturday by a Herald representative to the principal iron foundaries and engineering workshops in Auckland. In every establishment visited there were many machines and appliances lying idle, which formerly were kept in constant use, and gave employment to numbers of skilled mechanics, who to-day are out of work. In regard to the labour conditions, the employers say that wages have increased nearly 40 per cent, in the engineering trades during the last decade. As the competition with imported goods from the United Kingdom is yearly becoming more keen one ironmaster went to the trouble to make a comparison of the wages paid in New Zealand and Great Britain in order to show that the competition must be very prejudicial to local manufacturers. According to British Board of Trade figures published last October, engineers (which term embraces turners, fitters, smiths, borers, slotters, and plainers) are paid from 28s 6d to 38s 6d per 54 hours week. Iron founders receive from 32s to 44s per 48 to 54 hours week, and pattern makers 27s to 45s per 54 hours week. In New Zealand engineers and pattern makers receive 58s 9d to 64s 7gd per 47 hours per week, while iron and brass moulders receive a uniform wage of 58s 9d for a 47 hours week. When the longer houTS worked in Great Britain are considered, the wages in the Dominion are, the ironmaster pointed out, fully 100 per cent, higher all round. The competition from abroad is considered a particularly big obstacle for ironmasters to overcome with wages 100 per cent, higher than in Great Britain, and material 50 per cent, dearer.

"It is," said a leading ironmaster, " astonishing that the engineering trade of the Dominion has been able to carry on business so long." It is contended, therefore, that when the ironmasters ask for e- protective tariff they are not asking more than the industry is entitled to expect. One of the heads of the engineering trade says that most of the work done at his foundry at the present time is estimated on a bare 6 per cent, basis, exclusive of office charges, and this, to use his own phrase, " just keeps the doors open, but could never build up an industry." The ironmasters do not, it was explained, ask for a huge prohibitive tariff, but rather a restrictive tariff which will enable them to compete on equitable terms with imported machinery, boilers, castings, and suchlike articles which have been in the past built and made in New Zealand, and stood the severest tests against anything that has been imported. One of the largest iron and brass founders in Auckland said that 10 and 15 years ago his firm did 90 per cent, of their brass moulding locally, but on account of the big Birmingham firms being able to get their work done at a wage rate of from 5d to 6d per hour, they had to practically give up the moulding branch of their business and become importers.

Another great disability which the leaders of the engineering trade say they have to work under is the lack of support from the public, the local bodies, and the Government. This, it is stated, is particularly noticeable in the matter of oil engines. Last year £IIO,OOO worth of oil engines were imported into New Zealand, and our ironmasters are confident that as good an article, if not better, could be turned out locally. "It is not," said one manufacturer, " a matter of the quality of the local work being deficient, as is amply demonstrated by the fact that the oil engines made by Auckland firms have stood the severest tests and came out triumphant, where the best imported engines have failed. The buying public seems to be imbued with the idea that anything made in England or Scotland is surely good, but in the trade practical engineers state emphatically that while some excellent .machinery comes from the United Kingdom, there are some very shoddy oil engines imported which do not pay a penny duty." • PROPOSAL FOR MORE PROTECTION. VIGOROUS CONDEMNATION BY MINISTERIAL JOURNAL. (From Our Own Cohuespondekt.) WELLINGTON, April 26. For some time past the trade of certain engineering firms has for a variety of reasons, some of which are not unconnected with arbitration laws and the " ca'canny " policy of the workers, been languishing, and various suggestions and hints have been thrown out as to the immediate necessity for further protection against Great Britain and foreign countries. One of the prime movers in this agitation is Mr Luke, M.P. for Wellington Suburbs, who is himself in the engineering trade. He says straight out that there should be an additional impost upon imports. The New Zealand Times (the Ministerial morning journal), dealing with this demand in its leading columns, characterises it as an intolerable proposal. It points out that " already these people are protected by duties Tanging from 5 to 20 per cent., and the taxation levied by the State through the operation of this impost upon users of machinery amounts to about £70,000 a year. This addition to the cost of equipment represents a serious drain upon the pockets of people to whom machinery is necessary, and it cannot be lightly urged that there should be any increase of the toll for the purpose of

helping the pockets of the State or the ironfounders." Mr Luke argued that one reason ior an increased impost was the reduction of cable charges, and the improvement m the oversea steamer services, but the Times points out the fallacy of such a line of reasoning. It adds : "The theory thaf as the output from certain foundries has decreased within the past year the trouble could be met by increasing the price of machinery, implies a strange faith in the efficacy of high duties as a stimulant to purchase. The output has fallen because the demand has undergone shrinkage—a not unusual experience in other branches of trade during the last 12 months. On their own showing the ironmasters' real quarrel is with the Arbitration Court in fixing a rate of wages higher than their industry can bear. We would, however, be in the very centre of a vicious circle if this were accepted as a valid reason for penalising consumers, for this would mean vesting the court with a regulative authority far beyond the boundaries of its present influence. Were the awards of the Arbitration Court to be taken as grounds for tariff tinkering, the time would have arrived for consumers being represented before the court as well as employers and workers. Mr Luke wants cheaper labour, or in default to havet he people who use the machinery forced to pay more for it. There is thus a bifurcation of interests, as cheap machinery is quite as important to many individuals as cheap labour is to ironfounders. The idea that the State, for revenue purposes, should tax a citizen who purchases a piece of machinery is bad enough, but that it should also -give someone else the privilege of doing so is a proposal to be resisted on every possible oocasion. The ironfounders may have been having a bad time recently, but if so they are. not singular in that respect, and it would be the crudest of all notions to suppose that their position can be improved by making the pathway of others more difficult."