IMPORT CONTROL REGULATIONS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22636, 15 February 1939, Page 12

IMPORT CONTROL REGULATIONS

PREVENTION OF TEST IN COURTS

GOVERNMENT COMPARED WITH DICTATORSHIPS

MR R. M. ALGIE SEES THREAT

TO LIBERTY

(p)’.f.as ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.)

AUCKLAND. February 14.

•‘Liberty is at stake,” said Mr R. M. Algie. organiser of the Auckland Provincial Freedom Association, referring to the refusal of the Government to grant an originating summons to test the validity of the Import Control Regulations. He described the refusal as parallel with the methods of European dictators.

"For a Government which will thus ride roughshod over long-established principles of justice to call itself democratic is simply a shocking misuse of language and an insult to the intelligence of the New Zealand public,” he said. "It is the liberty of the man in the street which fs at stake in the long run.

"The law says that any citizen who wishes to test the meaning or validity of any statute, by law. will, or deed, can do so simply by placing the matter before the Courts for their decision. If, tiien, the Government is sure of the legality of its actions regarding import.control. what could it desire more than that its legislation should receive the approval and support of .the decision of the only tribunal in the country that is entirely independent and wholly free from prejudice, political feelings, and .influence? If. on the other hand, the Government has reason to doubt the legality and justice of its own actions, and to dread exposure, what could be more disastrous for it than to lose its case in the Courts? Why is the Government afraid to face the issue?

"If this recent attempt to legislate arbitrarily by Order-in-Council and to refuse ordinary access to the Courts goes unchallenged and undefeated, we must resign ourselves to the consequences. We must in this event be prepared to see the diminution, perhaps the destruction, of the authority of Parliament over all matters of State economic policy, and for the future we must be prepared to witness the advent of important and far-reaching changes merely by the introduction overnight of autocratic Orders-in-Council. This would Inevitably lead to the substitution of legislation by decree for that based upon free and unfettered debate by the chosen representatives of the people in Parliament.”

LICENCES ISSUED IN AUCKLAND

SECOND SIX MONTHS OF YEAR

RESTRICTIONS ON BOOKS RELAXED

(PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.)

AUCKLAND, February 14. Applications for licences to import certain classes of seasonal goods for the second period of the year*are now being considered by the Customs Department in Auckland. A few licences for the second period have actually been issued.

‘ntrougbout the last few weeks the department has been • maintaining the rate of issue of licences for the first six months of the year, and to-day the total pf licences issued reached 16,425. A few hundred applications for the first period remain to be dealt with, and although applications are still coming iii the end of the accumulation is in sight.

Some of the restrictions Imposed on certain classes of goods under the Import Licensing Regulations have now been relaxed, and will apply to the first six months’ period of the year. - Cuts had been made on the importation of books of foreign origin, and these have now been withdrawn; but publications which give prominence to sex, obscenity, horror, terror, cruelty, or crime are still subject to the restrictions. In the latter class are many types of pulp magazines. English books are still admitted without being subjected to a pre-deter-mined cut.

The reduction that applied to assembled motor-cycles has been dropped. The withdrawal of cuts also applies to “armour-plate” glass or toughened glass, which is chiefly used for motor-vehicles.