NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9253, 4 June 1908, Page 1

NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.

« AN APPEAL TO CITIZENS. "DO YOUR PART." | Commencing to-day, and ending on Wednesday, a novel appeal will be made by the Canterbury Industrial Association to the citizens of Christchurch. The Association's aim is to 1 give the people .a practical object lesson in the principle that New Zealanders should buy New Zealand goods. The Association has established a New Zealand Industries Week. Every day for one week large numbers of shop windows iv the thoroughfares will be filled with the dominion's manufactures. In some " cases, shopkeepers will display their own stock; in other j cases they will allow their windows to be used by manufacturing firms who have no special means of making displays that will catch the eye. Advertisers will use their spaces in the newspapers to draw attention to the same principle. Headmasters of schools will impress upon pupils the fact that the futures oi meuab 0^ of the coming generation will depend largely upon the progress of local industries, and that their loyalty is as desirable as the loj'alty of their elders. j Householders and others who enter shops will be invited to purchase New ] Zealand goods in preference to imported goods. Placards iv the windows ! will announce tnat the goods exhibited ha ye been. J^i»J^i^»^.^JCiMJlt>CasU?- j will be displayed urging all iNew 2ea- j landera to give the movement practical support. The card wJUieh has been moot widely distributed to shopkeepers bears tne following device: — ".New Zealand Industries Week: By buying goods maue in the dominion, you lieip to Keep yourselves, your relatives, and fydur iriends in constant employment. Do your part." Iv this way, it is intended to bring prominently before the people the extent and resources of the dominion's manufacturing industries, and to appeal to the public for practical sympathy. Thirty-tour manufacturers will supply samples of their goods for exhibition; thirty-two shopkeepers have i given up their windows for displays ; and fifty-seven firms will exhibit their own goods in their own windows. All the principal industries of Canterbury will be represented. There will be fr.ozen meat, woollen, bootmaking, fur-niture-making, biscuit-making, brush-ware-making, engineering, preserving and many other industries. All loc^l industries which it is possible to display in this way, in fact, will be showa in the shops of the city for one week. In some instances, as in the woollen industry, the exhibits i will be representative of the whole dominion. When the proposal was first made, some months ago, manufacturers and shopkeepers teemed to be rather luke- ! warm in their attitude towards it, but they iiave now entered into the proposal very enthusiastically, and it is '. expected that a splendid exhibition will I be made. At the suggestion of the Canterbury Industrial Association, the idea has been adopted in Wellington, and Auckland^- where similar displays [ will be made at the same time -as in Christchurch. The Association intends the present exhibition to be merely the forerunner of many more. It will try to have one week set apart every year for educating the people in this way to the value of their own manufactures, and it is hoped that in future years the displays will be on a much larger scale than the present one.