OVER LEGISLATED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1932, Page 8

OVER LEGISLATED.

STATE INTERFERES. DOING MORE HARM THAN GOOD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE VIEW (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Mr. C. H. Burgess, chairman of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in a statement to-day, said that a fact to be faced was that more harm than good was being done by legislation interposing the State in. private contracts. However pressing the situation, and however great the justification which the legislators of the country considered to be theirs in making those laws, it should be clearly indicated that they were of a purely temporary nature and should be cancelled at the earliest possible opportunity. Mr. Burgess said that legislation, while of some immediate benefit to certain farmers, destroyed the confidence of investors in mortgages, and made it harder than ever for members of the farming community as a whole to arrange finance for carrying on. This must necessajily follow interference with the inevitable economic processes. Statutes of No Use. "It is evident that the general public is looking to the Parliamentary machine to legislate us into better times," said Mr. Burgess. "I wish to stress, _on behalf of my association, that this is altogether, wrong. New statutes for such a purpose are of no use because, if those statutes interfere further with the natural economic processes they are not merely useless, but definitely injurious. What most of the commercial community hopes for, and the most constructive proposal it can urge for the purpose of economic reconstruction, is that Parliament will cease to interfere with trade, industry and commerce. The business world is endeavouring to carry on, not with the help of wliat Parliament does, but in spite of what Parliament does. The powers of Parliament have been widely used beyond their proper sphere, is time the country realised that individual endeavour is the mainspring of trade and prosperity. Adjustment to Smaller Income. "We are confronted: with circumstances which can be surmounted only by the determined process of individual adjustment to conform to the reduced national and private income, an adjustment that is still going on quietly and unobtrusively in private business. This remedy may be unattractive, even painful, but it is the only remedy. There are two. things Parliament can do, stop borrowing and reduce expenditure. There are many of the recommendations made by' the National Expenditure Commission which have not yet been adopted. Beyond that the country needs a legislative holiday in order that we may be enabled to get on with the job."