The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, OCTOBER, 6, 1928. PRODUCTION IN LITTLE NEW ZEALAND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 8

The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, OCTOBER, 6, 1928. PRODUCTION IN LITTLE NEW ZEALAND

Empire Trade Week it may not be amiss'for people to give some consideration to the part this little country plays in production as a unit of Empire. Wool, butter, frozen meat, these are some of the things we raise and export overseas. For the first seven months of this year, New Zealand’s exports totalled £41,071,198 in value, which is £7,542,885 more than was the case for the corresponding period of 1927. For the 12 months ended July last, the exports reached a value of £56,044,234.

Do we live by wool alone, or by butter, or cheese, or frozen meat ? Not by any means. In addition to the products named we exported and are exporting this year, among other things, fish, honey, hares and rabbits, meat extract, sausage skins, dried and preserved milk, fruit, beans and peas, hops, potatoes, tobacco, live cattle, horses and sheep, hides, fur skins, flax, seeds, textiles, whale oil, coal, gold, silver, leather, timber, and even jewellery—though very little of this last. “Little New Zealand,” they say. A regular Aladdin’s cave!

Our industries are many, and we wrest treasures even from the sea. In the fisheries there are employed 25 steam trawlers, 88 oil vessels, 1,212 line and net-fishing vessels, 2,185 regular fishermen, and 1,052 persons other than fishermen. Last year they caught 327,562 cwt. of fish, valued at £454,021. Oysters secured from various beds were worth about £30,000, and over £7,000 was obtained from loeal whaling. The value of the fish, oysters, whalebone, and other fishy products exported was over £70,000.

Metal mining languishes, but is by no means done; coal mining is increasingly flourishing. Wc have produced about half a million sterling’s worth of gold annually in recent years, while the annual production of coal is worth between three and four millions sterling. What has mining produced for New Zealand? The casual may be amazed at the answer. From January 1853 to December 1926, there was exported from New Zealand gold worth £92,403,399; silver, £3,016,660; quicksilver, £8336; tungsten ore, £305,123; manganese, £61,994; kauri-gum, £21,855,751; coal £6,206,055; and other minerals, £451,134, to a total value of £124,308, 452. ■ So much wealth taken from underground in little New Zealand!

And the secondary industries—how immensely they have grown! Though the population does not as yet maintain a very wide range of industries, these mainly being limited to the treatment of our primary products, recent years have seen brisk advancement in manufacture, with a tendency to greater diversity. The “Buy New Zealand-made Goods!” slogan should incessantly be chanted. British goods, yes; and New ZealandBritish whenever possible. It is the demand by New Zealanders for locally-made goods that will extend the secondary industries and enrich the country. But let us look at these industries as they are.

Last year there were 4791 manufacturing establishments in New Zealand, employing 81,700 people, and paying them salaries and wages totalling £16,876,881. The value of the products of these secondary industries was £84,792,434. These figures must now have been greatly improved upon.

For a young country, situated so many thousands of miles from the centres of large population, New Zealand may be considered to have done marvellously well. And New Zealand industrially is as yet merely in its infancy. There should be no doubting a splendid future.