STATE INTERFERENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 161, 9 July 1932, Page 10

STATE INTERFERENCE.

CONTROL OF TRANSPORT. "RIGHTS FILCHED FROM US." APPEAL TO CROWN MOOTED. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) GISBORNE, this day. Strong criticism of transport control in particular and State interference in private enterprise generally was made at a meeting of the Wairoa Chamber of Commerce by the president, Mr. R. D. Robinson. "No doubt the decisions of the boards are in accordance with the law," said Mr. Robinson, "but how long are you prepared to sit quietly and allow ..your rights as citizens to be filched from you, ; one by one, and sometimes half a dozen at a time? These rights are going, and I say most emphatically, that it is long past the time for a halt to be called. No business man will deny that there was some necessity for control of transport while motor and other services were competing with the people's own railways and tramway services, with possibilities of enormous economic waste. There was very real necessity for Governmental interference in the interests of the whole community to protect the people's property. That was right and j just, but what call was there to*inter-; fere with the inalienable rights of citizens to earn a living, so long as they did not interfere with communal rights? What right has the Legislature to say that one or another citizen shall not use His Majesty's highways fully? "If our legislators cannot be trusted to protect our rights, and if our election and legislative machinery is powerless (as it apparently is) to protect our rights, we must appeal to the overriding power of the Crown to limit New Zealand's Constitution. "In making these remarks I refer not only to the Transport Act, but to the thousand Acts, rules and regulations which are slowly but surely whittling away our liberties. It gives food for much thought that powers, so dearly won from the Crown in bygone years, have been given into the hands of a

political machine more autocratic than was an absolute monarchy, and that we may now have to turn to the Crown for protection from our own representatives. This should not be, but the fact remains that well-meaning but incompetent politicians are year by year grinding out legislation and regulations which arc ill-advised, undigested and unwanted."