N.Z.'S PROGRESS.

Auckland Star, 4 September 1939, Page 5

N.Z.'S PROGRESS.

CANADIAN COMMENT. LABOUR'S ADMINISTRATION. ' i 1 "MEDDLING WITH BUSINESS." 1 ( 1 (From Our Own Correspondent.) g MONTREAL, August 8. 1 New Zealand's forthcoming exhibition is the subject of an editorial in to-day's ■( Toronto "Globe and Mail." It reads: < "New Zealand is to celebrate a cen- 8 turv of progress with a great exhibition, opening at Wellington in November, ] which will display the varied activities e of the Dominion. It will be a hundred * years on February 6 next since Captain \ William Hobson, R.N., the British i Government's representative, met the ' Maori chiefs and concluded the treaty by which the country's inhabitants recog- ' nised the sovereignty of Queen Victoria, j then only three years on the throne. The ' treaty paved the way for British immigration. Farmers, engineers, artisans and labourers, accompanied by their ' courageous womenfolk, soon began to migrate in thousands to the most distant Dominion to seek opportunity and fortune. Since then, the Dominion which invariably says 'Ready, aye ready' when Britain calls, has made trenfendous strides, and its exports now total approximately three hundred and fifty million dollars annually. "But New Zealand, like other countries, has felt the impact of the! depression and recent taken by] the Labour Government to convert the| E economic system from a free to a con-j i trolled economy have caused uneasiness » not only in the Dominion itself, but in - the United Kingdom, which is New Zea- - land's best customer. Finance Minister e Walter J. Nash recently visited London e for the second time since the Labour 4 Government assumed power, for the pur- - pose of discussing the defence of the Pacific, the future of trade with the 5 Motherland, especially in view of appret hension over import regulations, which were held to be in violation of the;

Ottawa Agreement, and the conversion of an 8.5,000,000 dollars loan expiring next January. "There will be no difficulty about lefence, but the other two problems are ot likely to be as simple of settlement, ince British interests are alarmed over he introduction of exchange control and lave not been reassured by the statenents of New Zealand Ministers that here is no intention of reducing pernanently the trade between the two :ountries. Moreover, British investors lave been frightened by the advanced ocial, economic and financial policy of few Zealand, which was designed as a tep toward the planned economy by vhich the Labour administration hopes o insulate the country from a repetition ►f the disasters caused by violent fluctutions in the world prices for the staple iroducts of the Dominion. "Canada has not travelled as far ae sew Zealand along the road to controlled conomy, but the present administration it Ottawa has gone a considerable disance in the matter of guaranteed prices or this and that, and the business interests of the Dominion may well pray to )e delivered from further ventures in State Socialism and crackpot schemes iesigned rather to ensure the re-electio-i of the Government than to get the :ountry out of the economic morass. The surest "way to create confusion and uncertainty is for the politicians to ;ontinue meddling with business. What I'anada and New Zealand need is the green light to go ahead."