The Government in Commerce

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22883, 2 December 1939, Page 12

The Government in Commerce

Further unhappy results of the Government’s excursions into the realms of corgmerce were illustrated in the discussions of the annual conference of the .New-, Zealand Grain, Seed, Produce Merchants’ Federation. They illustrate also that the Dominion’s path along the road to the socialisation of the means of production, distributipn and exchange, the Government’s declared, though not always admitted policy, is likely to be a thorny one for the people of New Zealand. The facts adduced by the conference about the Government’s dealings in essential food commodities may be qualified by circumstances. It may be that without Government control the public have suffered at different times shortages of various kinds of foodstuffs and consequent exorbitant prices for them; but the' Government’s record of failures oyer the short period during, which it has had control is so impressive that it cannot be disregarded. A fnjinro in one period to interpret the trend of the market in a certain commodity is 'understandable and forgivable; consistent failure in several commodities, such as are quoted by the conference, plainly, indicates ineptitude artd a 0 f grasp of essentials. For potatoes and cations are not the only commodities in trading With which the Government has tried its prentice hand and failed dismally. The full extent ed its failures in its trading ventures has not yet been made public in exact figures; but it hi as well that taxpayers should realise that for •very mistake, that is made, in State experiments in trading, they have to pay. And the jwprrt of it is that the Government is apparently incapable of learning from its own misIts unhappy experiences in the citrus jCrolt trade will be fresh in the minds of those jyfoyng who went through the worst of the foffijenra epidemic last winter with oranges in very short supply and selling at Prices, The resolution of protest by the conference indicates not only v the results but also the cause. Plainly, these

difficulties have largely arisen because control has been taken out of the hands of men of long and wide experience in trade in these commodities and handed over to public servants, no doubt men of intelligence and ability, but without the essential experience to enable them to judge market trends and to buv and sell to the best advantage. Moreover, these public servants, however good their intentions, are not necessarily bound by the prudent inhibitions that restrain the private trader. Consciously or unconsciously, since they are not themselves to be the losers, they may be apt to take risks from which the ordinary dealer would shrink. The Government, an avowed opponent of monopolistic control in private enterprise, has itself no objection to establishing a State monopoly arid thereby being enabled, as the conference resolution indicates, to “ cover up its mistake by making the public “ pay.” But the public will not continue to pay without protest nor to suffer the Government’s experiments in commerce if they can see in them no material advantage. State control of commerce may be justified only if as a result producers may be able to obtain a better price for their output, consumers may obtain supplies more cheaply,. and distribution may be more evenry spread. State control in the cases quoted has clearly failed to produce any of these results. Its experiments continue to add to the cost of living, jvhich the optimistic Minister for Industries and Commerce definitely promised as long ago as 1935 would and could be kept down. It is an ironical fact that the steepest rises have occurred in the commodities which the Minister himself, in a special appeal to housewives, enumerated at that time. These excursions into socialisation indicate plainly the direction that more'sweeping experiments may take and the results that are likely to accrue from them.