CALLING FOR PROSPERITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 726, 27 July 1929, Page 7

CALLING FOR PROSPERITY

THE DUTY OF BUYERS fTTritten for THE SUE) Two days ago so prominent an authority as the secretary of Industries and Commerce appealed . publicly to buyers of goods to ! help dispel the present clouds of business depression and unemployment by ordering goods of New Zealand manufacture. By this means alone trade conditions would improve all round, and much distress be alleviated without costing anyone a single penny. I Mr. J. \V. Collins, head of the De- ! partment of Industries and Commerce, stated in Wellington that although there had been an increase in the total value of manufactured goods produced last year, there had also been a falling-off in the number of ■workers employed, and wages paid in registered factories had decreased by £172,000 during the year. The depression in the sawmilling and footwear industries alone had affected 2,000 workers. There are two possible ways of improving this deplorable state of affairs. One by the State taking action to safeguard our industries, and to check the flood of imported wares which is swamping our warehouses and shops, with disastrous results to our skilled workers and their families. The other, and more immediate ! remedy, which arouses no bitter polii tical controversy, is by each and j every buyer of goods making a firm resolution to demand and insist on being supplied with New Zealaudj made goods whenever and wherever i possible. ‘•THIS PREJUDICE IS SILLY” The Secretary of Industries and Commerce pointed out that ”if the ladies were loyal to New Zealand footwear it would spell success for the industry, but for some strange reason they have a prejudice against New Zealand-made footwear. This prejudice is silly and must be overcome. Our own footwear is equal to anything else, both in quality and in price.” In case anyone may think Mr. Collins was unduly stressing the point it should be pointed out that during the year ended March 31, 1925, we imported 3,135,480 pairs of boots aud shoes of all sorts and varieties. Over three million pairs for a population of 1 1-3 millions, or three pairs a head for every man, woman and child in New Zealand! If only every buyer would resolve to call for one pair of “New Zealand-made” a year, in preference to these outsiders’ goods, the operatives in our boot factories would enjoy a wonderful boom of prosperity, the tanneries would be w orking overtime on our farmers’ supply of skins and hides, the idle factory motors would be humming busily, and our people would be shod in honest, hardwearing, all-leather footwear; for there is no case yet on record where a New Zealand maker has been prosecuted for selling cardboard and blotting paper as footwear and forgetting to brand it as such. DEMAND THE “HOME-MADE” BRAND What applies to footwear, applies equally to clothing and every form of apparel. The products of our woollen mills are honest and sound new wool goods. Our looms have no machinery for mixing in cotton, shoddy or other adulterants. Every housewife knows the value and virtue of "homemade” goods; yet many fail to appreciate the outstanding merit and superiority of our "home-made” goods when shopping. All our foodstuffs, tinned, potted and preserved, are made under the strictest supervision and bygenic conditions. All meat must be killed under the watchful eye of a qualified veterinarian, and health inspectors insist on the rigid cleanliness and soundness of all products, while the enforcement of the Food and Drug Acts conserves the consumers’ health Why, then, do our housewives accept jam made by Kaffir labour in South Africa, or buy foodstuffs packed in foreign countries when our own fresh “home-made” goods be to their hand? EMPLOY OUR OWN WORKERS The real employer of the mill and factory worker is not the "boss” who signs the wages cheque which fills Friday’s pay-envelopes, but the local consumers who either buy our workers’ "home-made” products or prefer those of outsiders. Every shilling spent on buying imported goods, when our own make is available, means money taken out of our own workers’ pay envelopes, and put in those of busy workers in other countries; so that our skilled artisans are idle because our shoppers turn down their wares and spend their money on others’ goods. Our trade figures, banking returns, and savings banks deposits, show that we should now be enjoying a period of great prosperity. By a combined campaign on the part of every shopper to insist on being supplied with “homemade” goods, the wealth which is here would be put in circulation among our local producers, creating a welcome trade revival by multiplying that wealth through our own productive forces: for no country can become wealthy through its imports, and only by our own internal production can prosperity be restored.

—P.A.