SELF-SUFFICIENCY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20295, 3 May 1934, Page 13

SELF-SUFFICIENCY.

Manufacturers’ Reply to Mr Goodfellow. POLICY ADVOCATED. A policy of greater self-sufficiency in New Zealand as a means of providing a larger internal market for the farmers and of increasing employment was strongly advocated by Mr A. M. Hollander, senior vice-president of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association at a meeting of the executive of the association last evening. Mr Hollander dealt with a recent statement by Mr William Goodfellow to the effect that if the manufacturing industries were efficient they did not require tariffs. He described it as a despicable statement to make and said that Mr Goodfellow could not possibly prove it. It was quite obvious that the manufacturers were not ashamed of any investigation by the proper authorities and that was proved by their evidence before the Tariff Commission. Reference was also made by Mr Hollander to a recent meeting of the executive of the North Canterbury Farmers’ Union at which Mr Colin M’lntosh had brought up the question of the importance of the manufacturing industries in the future development of the Dominion. Mr M’lntosh, he said had met with a little opposition, but he had a strong case and stood up to it and made mince meat of his accusers and the accusers of the manufacturers.

Right Thinking. The manufacturers, he said, owed Mr M’lntosh a debt of gratitude as the pioneer of right thinking among the farmers. He believed that Mr M’lntosh was the type of man who would stand by his guns, and he had taken the liberty of writing to him congratulating him on his stand and had received a charming letter in reply. “ We in New Zealand,” Mr Hollander continued, “ have been forced into the positioq where we must develop our manufacturing industries or go to the wall. This country is not going to the wall, and it must be obvious that we must develop in the direction of more self-sufficiency. We have never said that we should become completely self-sufficient. That is obviously impossible. There are thousands of things we will always have to import, and there are thousands of things that have never been produced in this country on which we have to pay high duties, and we manufacturers are blamed for that.” Mr Hollander claimed that New Zealand could become more self-sufficient than at present, and by doing so a greater market would be provided for those farmers who could not sell abroad. Employment would be provided not only for the present unemployed, but also for men in the Old Country who were now producing the goods that would be manufactured in New Zealand. Australia, Canada and South Africa were developing along those lines

Agreement With Britain. Mr Elliot, one of the greatest statesmen of the British Empire, was going to enable this country to fit in accurately in the work of the Mother Country in making the British Commonwealth of Nations a more satisfactory collection of nations than it had been in the past. New Zealand must be able to formulate a scheme of agreeing with England as to how much of* our dairy produce she would take. Now that Britain had thrown overboard the free trade policy, New Zealand must adjust her own affairs to the new conditions, and that did not mean sacrificing the secondary industries.

Mr Hollander contended that it was ridiculous to say that New Zealand would never be able to export manufactured products, claiming that if a policy of self-sufficiency were followed, that time would come. The action of Mr Hollander in extending an invitation to the members of the executive of the Farmers’Union and their wives to inspect local factories was approved.