SECONDARY INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1929, Page 8

SECONDARY INDUSTRY.

Thoflc who see in the development of secondary industries the only way t:» the maintenance of prosperity for New Zealand will find cold comfort in the annual report of the Department of Industry and Commerce. It is true that in the year 1927-28 the number of manufacturing establishments increased by 78, but the number of employees was reduced by about twice that number. The reduction in wage earners was entirely among male employees. They decreased by 981, while female employees increased by 817, the net decrease for the year being 164. The same tendency is observable in regard to wages paid. Earnings of male employees were less by £171,845, while wages paid to female workers increased by°£62,789, a circumstance which seems to point to the lack of employment for the more skilled workers. There was a diminution also in the additional value created by secondary industries, the difference, that is, between the cost of materials used and the finished products. For the year 1927 the additional value was £32,799,021, which W as reduced last year by no less than £377,736. Two of the principal industries responsible for the lowered figures are sawmillincr and the manufacture of boots and shoes. Since 1925 the number of sawmill hands has fallen from 10,000 to 8,000, and the value of the output by nearly a million. On the other hand, furniture makers chow an increase in number of employees and. in value of output that is quite substantial. The bootmaking industry has been the subject of a special inquiry, and for that industry as well as sawmilling there seems no help except by a process of concentration and lessened overhead costs. This may have the effect of temporarily increasing unemployment, but is the only way to a real recovery. The report mAkes it plainer than ever that despite all that tariffs or bounties oi- any other political expedients can do to stimulate secondary industry it is upon primary exports that the Dominion must continue to rely for its solvency and the prosperity which has been its good fortune for so many years.