"DROP THAT AXE ! ”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 672, 25 May 1929, Page 7

"DROP THAT AXE ! ”

Why Knock Out Our Producers of Wealth?

We have all heard of the foolish fellow who reached for the axe to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. He did not stop to think or reason. He was selfish and wanted to Get-R ich-Qu ick. The geese which lay the golden eggs essential to our existence are our wealth producers. The country producers are being well cared for, but the manufacturing producers are in constant danger of the stupid axe. While the farmer remains the principal producer of wealth, the claims of our manufacturers and secondary producers are often lost sight of, and the full value to the country of the golden eggs which pour from our factories, mills and workshops is rarely realised by the ordinary citizen. With selfish indifference and blighting apathy he fails to appreciate the value to himself of the industries which are being 1 built up around him and struggling for existence A FEW FACTS How many realise the significance j of the 16,619 factories registered in 1927 and employing 103,1,0-', workers. The average weekly wage paid to the male workers varied from £-4 9s 6d to £4 17b 6d. The average for female workers varied from £1 IBs 2d to £2 7s 6d. These 103,000 workers operated on over £50,000,000 worth of raw materials, and the added value of this work was £32,500,000. The total value of capital sunk in these industries by Joint-stock concerns was over £41,000,000. The capital invested by private owners would swell this amount considerably. But the value to the country of a goose which lavs 84,792,434 golden sovereigns a year is too great for any foolish person to start calling for the axe. That, however, is the golden value a year of our factory production—£B4,792,434. WHY NOT DOUBLE IT? The value added in process of manufacture in 1920 wsa £23,000,000; in 1927 it was £32,500,000, an increase of over 41 per cent, in seven years. By a eomjiined campaign for compulsory preference for New Zealandroeite goods; by demanding a safeguarding tariff which will shelter the woskers In our factories and workshops; by providing work for our fellow New Zealanders instead of sending it overseas through buying im- i ported goods, the value of our factory production can be doubled in the next seven years. The spectre of unemployment will have disappeared aud there will be “plenty of money in the country,” because It will not have moved overseas for the purchase of imports. CAPITAL AND LABOUR AVAILABLE It may be argued that many of our 16,619 “factories” are “one-man shows” and of no substantial value. But one busy craftsman adding his bit to the £84,000,000 worth of factory output is worth a dozen unemployed or non-producers. He, at least, is producing the eggs, so why get the axe to him? Feed him, and watch him grow. See him hatch out more productive birds and further increase the output of golden eggs., Thomas Edison and Henry Ford began in “oneman” shows, and the tragedy of New Zealand today is the fact that, we have the skilled labour, the motive power, the brains, the raw materials, and the capital all available here on the spot —and idle! Never have we had so many skilled workers seeking work and eking out their meagre savings or living on charitable aid; while our banking returns show that never in our history has there been such an accumulation of deposits in our banks and financial Institutions! Why? THE PATH TO PERMANENT PROSPERITY As a result of the disastrous land boom and the slump which followed, even loans on “broad acres” proved hazardous, and investors are now timid of even freehold security. As a result of our foolish tariff policy there is nothing to safeguard/the investment of idle capital in starting new industries or expanding our existing ones. If we had a Ford or an Edison in our midst today, and he sought capital to exploit his discoveries, he would ask in vain; he has no security. Instead of sheltering and fostering the goose that lays the golden eggs, we allow the geese of the world almost free access to our feeding fround, and the poor bird is dying of starvation. Every time we buy an imported article we are doing our own workers out of a job. Why should New Zealand be a public common where the geese of the world can feed —aud then go to their homes abroad to lay the golden eggs? •lust lately the farmers have been busy in town flourishing their axes for the slaughter of the town-bred goose which uses £50,000,000 worth of their raw products to produce £84,800,000 worth of finished goods, besides consuming millions of poundsworth of the farmers’ food products, and providing employment for his sons and daughters who seek positions iu the towns. But our farmers are waking up to the folly of relying solely on a market at our Antipodes, and beginning to realise that the best, safest and surest market is here at home. A war or a huge shipping strike might isolate him from his distant distributing ground, fill his freezing works in a few weeks, and rum him financially. The nearer we are to a self-sufficient and self-contained community the sounder our standing as a nation. At one time when the farmer wanted his honey crop he smothered his bees with burning sulphur, and then waited for providence to send him fresh swarms. Now he keeps them in a two or three-storeyed home; feeds them with sugar ana water, excludes the drones, and gets his honey by “painless extraction while building up a stronger ana stronger comunity of workers. u 1925 he sent a surplus honey erop oz 1,822,04:51b overseas for sale. That is scientific production. , .. You have dropped the sulphur candle for killing bees to -extracr honey, Mr. Farmer. Why not drop that axe” which you are so anxious to use ou your fellow-producers in oui factories? _ .