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Among them are the increases in the labour force from immigration, increased mechanization in factories, decentralization of industries into provincial towns, and the general settling down of the community to peacetime pursuits as the disruption from war recedes into the past. In some factories where facilities are good and the task attractive applications for employment actually exceed vacancies, but this is exceptional. SECTION 11—INDUSTRIAL BUILDING AND POWER The extremely heavy pressure on the resources of the building industry to provide domestic accommodation makes it necessary still to restrain in great degree industrial and commercial construction. Nevertheless, where national advantage warrants it, this Department recommends to the Building Controller that permits be granted for new buildings or extensions for essential industrial use. New generating capacity and maintenance of water volume by greater rainfall combined to improve the supply of electric power in the past year. Such control on use of power as was necessary did not have to be on scales as rigorous as in the immediately preceding years. SECTION 12—DECENTRALIZATION OF INDUSTRY AND DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ESTATES While the trend, begun in the war years, towards the decentralization of suitable industries away from the major cities to smaller centres is continuing, it is not now so general as it was in recent prior periods, because the labour pools in the smaller cities and towns have been sought out and absorbed. In some localities staff shortages in decentralized factories have led to keen competition for the limited labour available. However, this difficulty becomes less intense as more houses are built, and in such centres as Hamilton and Palmerston North rapid increases in population are accompanied by significant additions to their industries. In the Hutt Valley the very big housing development scheme is nearing completion, while the development is already under way of the 70-acre State-owned industrial area at Taita. This land, adjacent to a railway-station, twelve miles from Wellington City on the main line to the Wairarapa which is scheduled for early electrification, is to be subdivided and leased to industry on long-term renewable leases at moderate rents. At the moment, even with a great many houses built in the locality, there is no surplus of labour, but as the houses are new the residents, in the main, are in the younger married group with young families, and on that account it is reasonable to assume that substantial numbers will reach working age in a few years. When legal formalities now being dealt with are completed and the area being sought at Nae Nae is acquired, development of an industrial district there will proceed. In the heavy industrial area at Seaview a section has been leased for the storage of petroleum products, and tenancy of another has been granted for the accommodation required to handle steel salvaged from the Pacific war theatre. Wartime store buildings at both Gracefield and Tamaki, following their release by the Services, have been made available to the Industrial Areas Committee for allocation for industrial purposes. Following a survey of Crown lands which are available for industrial purposes, where that appears more advantageous than their present use, recommendations to Government are being formulated to guide future policy concerning the use of these areas. Another proposal under consideration is that the Government should erect in Lower Hutt a building for rental to accommodate the numerous small factories now in sub-standard buildings in the residential parts of that city.

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