MR ARMSTRONG’S CURTAIN LECTURES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20761, 23 June 1937, Page 6

MR ARMSTRONG’S CURTAIN LECTURES.

No one who knows New Zealand’s Minister of Labour, anticipated that Mr Armstrong would attend the gathering of the International Labour Organisation at Geneva without making himself heard. The official justification for the absence from New Zealand of the Minister of Labour, at the moment that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance were out of the country, was that Mr Armstrong would carry a message to Geneva that would turn the eyes of the world towards New Zealand, in admiration and wonder. But once the turbulent administrative head of the Labour Department in New Zealand became officially associated with one or two of the principal committees of investigation at Geneva, some lively exchanges were anticipated by all who realised that the representatives of the great industrial countries would not sit idle under Mr Armstrong’s vigorously delivered curtain lectures. Manifestly the New Zealand Minister of Labour has drifted somewhat from his safe anchorage. He has commenced to lecture the representatives of great industrial countries who know something of the trials and tribulations of manufacturers who have to come into open competition for world trade, against the most powerfully-entrenched and thrusting competition. The election of Mr Armstrong to the Textile Committee gave the New Zealand Minister of Labour the opportunity he had hoped for as he dreamed dreams and saw visions as he speeded from New Zealand to Geneva. It is therefore of some interest to learn of the activities of the New Zealand Minister of Labour in the international sphere. Because Mr Armstrong represents a country possessing 18 textile factories employing 2599 male and female workers (mostly females), he has conceived the false notion that he can teach the textile manufacturers in the Mother Country how to run their business. “If British employers,” declared Mr Arm strong at Geneva, “with all their experience could not make a 40 hour week pay, they should go to New Zealand and learn about the business.” Doubtless a party of English textile manufacturers would gladly visit New Zealand if they thought this country could teach them how to face the fierceness of world trade at a. moment when wool is at peak prices. It would hardly be fair, however, to ask the British textile manufacturers to visit New Zealand to inquire into the working of an industry that is represented in 18 factories employing 2599 persons. But of course Mr Armstrong would be able to show any group of inquisitive textile manufacturers who might come to New Zealand to learn something of industrial methods in this country, that the textile industry made such immense strides in New Zealand between 1930-31 to 1934-35 that the cost of material used in the industry actually increased from £2,245,597 in 1930-31 to £2,484,508 in 1934-35! This “large” increase in business was attained not in open competition with thrusting competitors, but within the shelter of high tariff walls. But the New Zealand Minister of Labour was not content to insult the textile manufacturers of Britain by suggesting that they should come to New Zealand to learn the business. He actually clamed that the purchasing power of the people of New Zealand had been made possible by mere Acts of Parliament. As a matter of fact, the textile manufacturers in the United Kingdom and other countries, to quote the greatest authority on the wool situation, are “finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet either in selling or buying, and are being dragged at the heels of a strong world demand.” In other words, the textile manufacturers, who have come in for Mr Armstrong’s most severe criticism, are the very people who are making it possible for New Zealand to pay higher wages, and provide employment for additional workers, because they are buying New Zealand wool, to quote Messrs 11. Dawson, Sons and Company Limited, of Bradford, at rates that have attained almost fearsome levels! Manifestly a large measure of New Zealand’s prosperity is being provided by the very textile manufacturers in the Homeland who have come under the lash of Mr Armstrong’s pointless and somewhat reckless utterances.