"STRAPHANGING."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 115, 18 May 1933, Page 11

"STRAPHANGING."

DEPENDENCE ON STATE. | SELF-RELIANCE URGED. A policy of greater self-reliance on the part of the people, instead of depen- | dence on the State, is advocated by Mr. A. 0. Heany, secretary of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, who has been visiting chambers of commerce in the North Island. "We are in the hands of the State," said Mr. Heany. "There is in motion a process which is steadily undermining our national character and economic life, j This process is the taking away by the State of personal initiative and enterprise from the people by heaping them with kindness. The State is'doing too much for us. The efficient is being sacrificed for the inefficient. We are losing our individualism, and with it the liberty of the individual. "It is not only in the annual cost of its services that the State is playing such a large part in our lives. It is regulating us and controlling us in countless directions, particularly in the sphere of trade, where the pressure is relentless. Road transport services all over the country are being deliberately put out of action by the State; private traders are fighting against unfair competition in trade by tax-free national and local government concerns; producers are prevented from exporting certain products except through semiState channels; the people may not invest, in mortgages except on conditions determined by the State; the State, by the exercise of the Board of Trade Act, Commercial Trusts Act and Cost' of Living Act, prevent reasonable profits bein" made on many articles; the State prevents the growth of our engineering industry by doing its own public works; it debars us from 'opening new coal mines, building picture theatres _ and dairy factories, and so on almost indefinitely. "It is extraordinary that there should be this continual conflict between private enterprise and the State, when the State depends so utterly on private enterprise for its revenue. No doubt a prima-facie case can be made out for all these restrictions, and others like them, but the greater the measure of control the smaller the field for private endeavour. The State, from being our servant, has become our taskmaster. "The complexity of State operations to-day is enough to bewilder any politician. The general public is bewildered. There is no doubt that this State control is assumed with the best of intentions, but it is plain despotism, which creates more evils than it seeks to cure. The real problem is not what new controls can be devised for trade, but how quickly existTng ones can be removed. Private enterprise has never had a chance in this country, and never will have until it is freed from negative restraints. The people as a whole would avert a very real national danger, and would gain in character and in substance, by relying to a far greater extent on individual resource, instead of straphanging in the State omnibus.