IMPORT CONTROL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23269, 11 February 1939, Page 17

IMPORT CONTROL

Sir, —To many of us the Government's extra-parliamentary import control legislation looks like the thin end of the totalitarian wedge—and not too thin at that. Even so, 1, as a New Zealander, feci ashamed of my fellowcountrymen when the Bureau of Importers uses the language of Dr. Goebbels and Signor Gayda in a public rebuke to a visiting Australian politician who has expressed views from which the bureau's spokesmen dissent. The open telegram to Mr Dwyer-Gray does not attempt to disprove anything that lie said. That the victim is a visitor makes this attack on British tree speech very much the worse. How dilicrent fiom tlm Fascist intolerance was the spirit of Voltaire, who replied to an opponent, 'T disagree vehemently with what you say. but 1 will defend to the last ditch your right to say it." One wonders whether the Bui eau of Importers, which does not care to be openlv rude to the Government, has not deliberately adopted the indirect method of Hitler when he attacked Eden, Churchill and Duff Cooper, who could not retaliate. If so. it is all quite unnecessary. Importers have too much right on their side to heed tho discredited legal maxim, "No case —abuse tho plaintilrs attorney." Consumer.