The Press SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1947. National Conference

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25270, 23 August 1947, Page 8

The Press SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1947. National Conference

It may be said without any reservation that the national conference in Wellington this week worked excellently well. It dealt, as the reports show—especially the report of the production and trade committee—with a great variety of practical issues and produced constructive recommendations on all, or almost all; and it seems to have avoided wasting time and trouble on superficially attractive but empty proposals, such as writing off part of New Zealand’s accumulated sterling balances or funding such a part as a long-term, low-interest loan to Britain. Such monetary gestures would not alter the situation in which Britain is placed. The material need is to modify New Zealand’s external trading policy and programme, as Britain is directly and indirectly concerned, so as best to serve British interests, and to modify domestic policy and administration consistently and with the same object—producing more, saving more, shipping more, shipping it faster. The conference attacked this real problem, or series of connected problems, systematically. It may be thought by some to have shirked the central problem: that of the length of the working week. But it could not have advanced further than it did without involving itself in impossible complexities. The recommendation to the Government that a National Industrial Emergency Council should be set up is, essentially, a recommendation that this and connected problems of the effective organisation and use of the labour resources of the country should be studied in detail and specific proposals worked out from the evidence. It is not less practical to recommend this approach than, for example, to recommend the Government to consider setting up area transport committees and reissuing- the cargo control regulations. In regard to primary production, the conference comes rather late to the aid of those who have long deplored the Government’s wheat policy and argued that vigorous measures to encourage and assist wheat growing were necessary and, indeed, in view of the world’s plight, obligatory; but it is not too late to turn farmers now to spring sowing—nor to hope that the Government will back the

appeal properly. The warning against short-run increases in meat shipments which would be secured by sacrificing breeding stock is as wise as the advice to increase the number of breeding sows and the intake of heifer calves into the herds; and it is also wise to turn attention to the sheer waste and to the non-essential use of some primary products. Although the conference could for the most part merely draw attention to those material shortages which must at least be eased if primary production is to be expanded, it was able to recommend positive action in one respect. Agricultural machinery must be bought; and the restrictions on imports, therefore, must be lifted. This is less an exception to the imperative policy of severely controlling imports than a first-class example of good sense in applying it. For the rest, on the subject of imports, it need only be said that the conference rightly advised the Government to overhaul all present proposals requiring the import of capital goods and that Mr F. P. Walsh, the chairman of the committee which brought down this recommendation, added two sound observations to it. The first is that the British Government should be consulted in revising New Zealand’s list of essentials; the second—a very prudent warning—that* if exports are increased without a corresponding increase in imports, the inflationary tendency in New Zealand will have to be still more carefully checked.

The conference was no doubt right in concluding that voluntary action to save petrol and food should be tried. Its proposals for better organisation and for publicity should be worked out and tested as rapidly as possible. If the results are not good enough, it will be necessary to turn to the alternative of compulsion. But the publicity should be sustained, it should be resourcefully varied, and it should be the very best.