PEAK PRODUCTION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19455, 14 October 1937, Page 6

PEAK PRODUCTION

DOMINION BOOT TRADE ANSWER TO COMPLAINTS MINIST Eli’S EXPLANATION IMPORT SUGGESTIONS ( Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. "New Zealand boot manufacturers at tiiis very moment are at the peak of their production and are employing the highest number of, hands in their history." In these terms the Minister of Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, replied to the statements that the boot industry is in a perilous position as a result of competition from overseas. "The operatives employed by the New Zealand boot factories at April 1 of this year,” the Minister said, “totalled Ml os, compared with 237(3 in the 192(327 year, generally regarded as being the country’s year of greatest boom.” The Minister said that no industry in New Zealand was subject to the same fluctuations as the boot industry. Some of the big manufacturing firms that had shortened their stalls were the biggest importers of boots. “Whenever they can get a bargain from another country they buy at once and New Zealand becomes the dumping ground for these other countries to the detriment of the workers of the Dominion,” continued Mr. Armstrong. “The firms that are squealing the hardest are themselves responsible for the condition they say they are in.”