Fostering Industry to Solve Unemployment

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1043, 6 August 1930, Page 7

Fostering Industry to Solve Unemployment

MR. D. JONES'S SCHEME IMPLEMENT manufacture -yj/E SUN'S Parliamentary Kcportcr PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Tuesday. A strong plea for more attention to. New Zealand industries as a means of solving the unemployment problem, instead of tile spending of huge sums on unproductive works, was made in the House this evening bv jlr. D. Jones (Reform —Mid-Canter-bury) in the Budget debate. •‘The increased taxation is partly due to unemployment,” he said, “and to the railways. All the work that the Government has done leaves us with an increasing volume of unemployment on our hands and proves conclusively that the policy it has been following is leading to disaster. The figures given to the House on the number of unemployed prove that it is only a rapidly expanding industry, and the amount that it is costing the Dominion indicates that the breaking-point has been reached. "The Reform Party informed the Government last session that this would be the result of its policy. The land proposals that were to do so much to assist in the solution are not much further forward than they were a year ago, but, in any case, land can only absorb a portion of the men. The problem is a difficult one, and the main solution must lie along the lines of employing our own men in New Zealand in making some of the goods that we employ other men to make elsewhere. One of the worst features of the new tariff proposals is that they do not take effective measures to reach this goal. They are spread out so thinly over a very large number of articles that the result must be very unsatisfactory. They will give protection to some industries that do not deserve it, and will become a further load on the community and difficult to deal with in the future. This House set up a committee to go into this whole question last session, but it was never called together, and the Minister was forced to frame a policy without definite information. WASTAGE OF MONEY “It is now no longer a question of free trade or protection, and of the bandying backward and forward of text-book arguments. We are spending millions of money on works, many of which are of questionable character, and some that will be a liability instead of an asset. The decision the Government has got to make is whether this course is to be pursued or whether it will use this money for employment in assisting manufacturing industries. "I am strongly opposed to protection without adequate guarantees, and the Government should not have brought in the increased duties on timber without adequate guarantees of price. It might be possible to fix the price of timber and give the whole market, and this would employ a very large number of men at good pay, but in a small country such as this I am certain that contracts could be entered into, for a period of years, with, say, implement-makers, to make practically all the farm implements that we require In the Dominion. No big industry can live today in competition with the world without mass production, and I believe it' is the duty of the Government to make this possible and also, at the same time, to protect the user. SUPPLY ALL 'NEW ZEALAND “I give this as an illustration of what I know can be done, and if it is not done we will shortly be entirely at the mercy of outside combinations for nearly all implements that are required. Further, if the Government offered, say, £I,OOO for the best grass-mower suited to New Zealand conditions, and that could be sold at a price not higher than the imported article, 1 believe we could contract to supply the whole of our needs in the Dominion itself without added cost to the producer, and with a very definite gain to the Dominion. I believe we import nearly 1,000 grassmowers a year. I give these two illustrations of what I believe is possible in many other industries.”