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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 23

Part IV. — Imports and Industries

Part IV.

Imports and Industries.

The value of the articles imported into New Zealand during the year 1884 was £7,663,888, being about 4 per cent, less than those imported during the previous year, when the total was £7,974,038.

For the convenience of this essay the articles imported may be divided into three classes:

In Class A (vide Table No. 1) will be found goods the manufacture or production of which is already a settled industry in New Zealand.

In Class B (vide Table No. 2) will be found goods the manufacture or production of which is not yet fully established in New Zealand, or, though possible and desirable to be established, has not yet been initiated.

In Class C will be placed all other articles imported into the colony, including those which are too trifling and unimportant to consider; those which could not possibly be manufactured or produced in the colony; and those which, though possible to be manufactured or produced in the colony, are required by custom or fashion to be imported into it.

It is obviously difficult to draw a sharp dividing line between these classes, but it is believed that it has been fairly attempted in the tables annexed to this essay. Fashion and custom regulate the place of production and manufacture in some cases page 13 even more than the materials of which goods are made or the mode in which they are manufactured. This would alone render the task of classifying the imports difficult and uncertain; but, so far as can be ascertained with anything like accuracy, goods regulated solely or almost entirely by the caprice of custom or fashion have been relegated to Class C.

The progress which has been made in manufactures and in opening up the industrial resources of the colony can be readily seen from a study of the first class of imports. The total of that class was—in 1883, £1,776,765, and in 1884, £1,526,312. Although the population of the colony, including Maoris, increased from 584,974 to 608,401, or about 4 per cent., the imports in Class A decreased by £250,453, or about 14 per cent. The decrease was very marked in some instances, even after allowing for diminished consumption through financial depression, for the disuse of particular kinds of goods, and for over-importation in the previous year.

Agricultural implements decreased from £47,432 to £16,412, or 65 per cent.; wearing apparel, from £263,849 to £197,789, or 25 per cent.; boots and shoes, from £168,383 to £143,840, or 14½ per cent.; carpets, from £41,267 to £28,376, or 31 per cent.; cordage, from 16,615 to £14,236, or 14 per cent.; earthenware, from £42,396 to £24,378, or 41 per cent.; furniture, and upholstery, from £65,571 to £48,079, or 27 per cent.; hardware and ironmongery, from £245,560 to 177,910, or 29 per cent.; jams and jellies, from £18,759 to £10,552, or 43½ per cent.; linseed oil, from £20,436 to £17,350, or 14½ per cent.; picture frames and mouldings, from £3,779 to £3,243, or 14 per cent.; saddlery, from £43,871 to £32,204, or 26 per cent.; sulphuric acid, from £363 to £157, or 57percent.; tinware, from £6,117 to £4,932, or 19 per cent.; tobacco, from £81,705 to £63,851, or 22 per cent.; cigars, from £25,809 to £23,119, or 11 per cent.; twine (not binding, but common), from £9,625 to £7,974, or 17 per cent.; vegetables, from £6,865 to £5,601, or 18 per cent.; woollens, from £100,222 to £75,151, or 25 per cent.'; and blankets, from £29,702 to £25,370, or 15 per cent.

Even after making liberal allowance for the other operating causes already alluded to, and especially for the over-importation of the year 1883, it still remains an unquestionable fact that a vastly greater proportion of the articles consumed in New page 14 Zealand was manufactured or produced by the people of the colony in 1884 than in 1883.

Had manufactures and the development of industrial resources remained at a standstill during the past year the imports should have kept pace with the increase of the population. But, as already remarked, the value of the imports in Class A, instead of being 4 per cent, greater in 1884 than in 1883, was actually 14 per cent. less. A fact like this is worth a volume of theories, and points unmistakably to the progress the colony is making, to the wisdom of the steps taken in the past to quicken its manufactures and industries, and to the desirability of putting forth renewed and more vigorous efforts to quicken and encourage them in the future.

In the case of some articles of common consumption included in Class A the result is not so encouraging.

There has been an increased importation of candles to the amount of 65 per cent.; carriages, 36 per cent; coals, 23 per cent.; flour, 62 per cent.; leather, 15 per cent.; pickles, 18 per cent.; railway carriages, 1,050 per cent.; and common soap, 120 per cent.

With the exception, perhaps, of candles, an industry which deserves the protective fostering of the State to a larger extent than it has hitherto received, there is nothing calling for anxiety in any of these articles.

With regard to candles, it is the opinion of the largest firm of New Zealand makers that increased duty on the imported article would cause a larger quantity of the raw material to be used up, and employment to be found for a greater number of hands.

The further opening-up of the colony by trunk railways, which cannot long be delayed, should increase the consumption of New Zealand coal by bringing it to the consumers' doors, and should render certain districts less dependent on a foreign supply.

Carriages are very much governed by fashion, and the date when the colonial article will supersede the Home import must necessarily be remote, though marked progress has been made in this industry in New Zealand.

The complicated laws which govern the distribution of food—laws which are intimately bound up with the low prices of agricultural produce—present the singular anomaly of a grain-produc- page 15 ing colony increasing its imports of flour. So long; however, as a loaf made of New Zealand flour can be sold cheaper in London than in the colony itself, we cease to wonder at, though we deplore, the increased importation of flour. With better home markets for the New Zealand farmer may come a more healthy condition of the trade in flour, and better times for the consumer.

The increased import of leather is an unsatisfactory fact, indicating as it does that, however excellent the tanned article produced in the colony may be, the tide of capital has not yet flowed into this most important industry. There are signs, however, that tanning extract from native woods, especially in the Pelorus Sounds, will become an article of commerce; and that bark-crushing, for which a factory has recently been started at Nelson, will take its place among New Zealand industries.

With regard to railway carriages, the State can directly aid in developing the industry by offering to colonial workmen contracts for building carriages for the railways upon favourable conditions. There is a simplicity and saving of trouble connected with importing railway plant of all kinds, which is refreshing to the official mind; but questions of policy as well as trade—of vivifying the labour market as well as economy in national expenditure—are involved in this matter, and cannot be overlooked in a country which is neither wholly free-trade nor wholly protectionist in its dealings with its own people and the outer world. Both with locomotives and carriages the Public Works Department would do well to liberally encourage colonial industry and the use of colonial material.

The increase in the importation of common soap is of no importance. But a small and fluctuating quantity is imported in any year, the New Zealand article having triumphed over its European and Australian rivals, and practically driven them from the field. With judicious State encouragement, probably in the form of increased import duties, the importation of candles would soon become as insignificant as that of soap; the price paid by the consumer would practically be undisturbed; labour would be employed and capital invested; and the whole colony would receive the benefit in a prosperous people and an elastic revenue.

The increase in the importation of pickles is not in itself a matter of much importance, except for its apparent singularity.

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One would have supposed that, of all articles of common consumption, pickles would have been manufactured in the colony. It is possible, however, that, with all the advantages of cheap and abundant raw material, there are certain trade secrets and peculiarities of fashion and custom connected with pickles which colonial manufacturers cannot at present contend against, however excellent the article which they have undoubtedly produced.

Upon the whole retrospect of the imports in Class A, comprising most of the articles of general colonial consumption, there is no reason to alter the note of encouragement and hope which in this essay has already been sounded.

Next has to be considered Class B, which includes articles the manufacture or production of which is not yet a fully established industry, or, though possible or desirable to be established, has not yet been initiated. It will not be possible within this essay to consider how the industry in all these articles can best be developed; but the principal articles will be dealt with at a later stage. Included in this class are sugar, iron, printing paper, silk, and olives, the production of which in this colony, as a commercial transaction, is so remote that a practical essay ought to devote little attention to them. Reference will, however, be made to them further on. Meantime it is well to point out that, while the total of the articles in Class B shows an increase (vide Table No. 2) of 6 per cent, over the previous year, there was actually a falling-off in the imports in this class, excluding sugar, iron, printing paper, silk, and olives, of H per cent. It may be laid down as an established fact that the importation of some of the articles in Class B has received a check from the manufacture of similar articles in the colony, though, from various causes, that manufacture makes little progress. Following on the lines laid down earlier in this essay it will be necessary to show how such industries can receive healthy stimulation.