LABOUR POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 137, 13 June 1938, Page 13

LABOUR POLICY.

DEFENCE BY MINISTER. STANDARDISATION QUESTION. (By Telegraph.—Pregß Association.) WELLINGTON, Saturday. Criticism to the effect that standardisation and simplification constituted evidence of socialisation a& the objective of the Government's policy wae replied to iby the Minister of Industries and Commerce, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, in a statement made to-day. "If the encouragement of the utilisation of these principles constitutes evidence of socialisation, then all the leading countries in the world are fast moving towards, this objective, most of them having made much more definite progress in this respect than has New Zealand," said the Minister. 'If the approval and encouragement of the development of standardisation and simplification are to be regarded as irrefutable evidence of socialist aims, then the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes and the Government of which he was Prime Minister must have been imbued with the same purpose when the visit of Mr. C. E. Le Maistre, director of the British Standards 'Institution, to this Dominion was sponsored by the Government ?n 1931-.12. This conclusion is justified, as Mr. Forbes is recorded as saying that he felt that standardisation would certainly prove of great benefit to New Zealand and to the development of Empire trade.

"In this, Mr. Forbes was in good company, for the visit of Mr. Le Maistre was made possible by the assistance of His Majesty's Treasury and the Empire Marketing Board, npon the recommendation of the Board of Trade, on the ground that it would assist in carrying- out the recommend a tions of the Imperial Conference of 1936;"

The Minister quoted resolutions of the 1927 World Economic Conference and the 1932 Imperial Economic Conference in favour of standardisation and simplification. "The present Government,"' Mr. Sullivan added, "is. carrying- oat undertakings entered into but never difi*l am ■■I I»7 thw itm. Mn^iRMMUaL 9