INTERFERENCE IN TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 32, 8 February 1928, Page 19

INTERFERENCE IN TRADE.

GOVERNMENT'S DIFFICULTY.

COMMENT BY MR. McLEOD.

(By Telegraph.--rPress Association.) NELSON, Tuesday.

As far as Government's interference in business was concerned, it was hard to know where it should start and where it should end, said the Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister of Industries and Commerce, when addressing the annual conference of the New Zealand Master Grocers' Federation.

If a trade was going along allrigh.t and making a fair profit, then it should be left alone, said the Minister, but where unfair profit was taken for services rendered, then the public would demand that the Government step in.

Mr. McLeod said he did not think stability was built up by the growth of great monopolies, but he was sure the Empire owed its present solidarity to a multitude of small shopkeepers who exhibited a spirit of healthy independence. Where monopolies existed, then the Government had interfered, either by entering into competition itself or else by laying down fixed prices for the commodities concerned. Thus is would be seen that the necessity for State interference arose in a trade itself. If it was properly conducted, then the Government had no cause to step in.

The Minister laid stress on the need for encouraging New Zealand-made goods. He said that when vegetables and similar commodities were being imported into New Zealand it was obvious that something was wrong.

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