REGULATIONS ON STABILISATION

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27038, 13 May 1953, Page 10

REGULATIONS ON STABILISATION

N.Z. MANUFACTURERS* VIEWS

REMOVAL OF PRICE CONTROLS URGED (New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 12. The president of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation (Mr J. H. Manning) said today that in view of the Government’s decision on the Economic Stabilisation Regulations there could no longer be any possible justification for the continuation of price control on the wide range of items in full supply or even over-supply.. Wages were the largest single item that went into the cost of production, and they had now been removed from the requirements of stabilisation, he said.

“In all fairness, if stabilisation is relaxed or abandoned as it> affects one section of the community, then the over-all policy of stabilisation should be reconsidered, and the controls removed from other sections also,” he said.

Mr Manning said there had certainly been no stability about the Economic Stabilisation Regulations themselves, "They have been subject to constant amendments.*” he said. "I must say I am surprised at the latest decision announced by the Minister pf Labour to amend the regulations again by deleting reference to the general purpose of the Economic Stabilisation Act as one of the matters to which the Arbitration Court has to give particular regard when considering an application for a general wage order, 'i “The particular set of regulations is only a part of the wider machinery of stabilisation,” said Mr Manning, “and I feel the present decision is lacking in that it makes no reference at all to what the broader policy of economic stabilisation is to be for the future. The regulations seem to have been Considered as an isolated issue, without defining the future picture of stabilisation as a whole. Minister’s Statement Recalled “Speaking to the annual conference of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation two years ago the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Watts) said that price control was an arm of the Government’s economic policy and some control was still necessary in the interests of stabilisation. It now seems as though most of the other arms are being lopped off, and price control is about the only arm of economic policy left. “Today price control is one of the most distasteful and unnecessary of all controls. It bears particularly heavily on manufacturers, who have to submit details of their costs for scrutiny by the Price Control Divir sion, when all the time it is really competition, and not the hypothetical profit control formula of the Price Tribunal, which determines the price they can get for their goods. “It is a great pity the Government has not given some clear statement of the general policy of stabilisation rather than this piece-meal whittling away of various sections of it,” said Mr Manning.

FEDERATION OF LABOUR

REPRESENTATIVES MEET MINISTERS (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 12. Representatives of the Federation of Labour, headed by the president (Mr F. P. Walsh) had talks with the actingprime Minister (Mr K. J. Holyoake) this afternoon on the new Economic Stabilisation Regulations. The Attor-ney-General (Mr T. C. Webb) and the Minister of Health (Mr J. R. MarthaU) were also'present. Mr Holyoake said later he had no comment to make on the pieeting.

•‘WHOLE ISSUE EVADED”

CANTERBURY COUNCIL’S VIEWS “Although it is safe to say that no major alteration to relieve the provisions which discriminate against the workers has been made, it is difficult to say what effect the amendments to the regulations will have,” said Mr R. H. McDonald, secretary of the Canterbury district council of the Federation of Labour, when he commented yesterday that the amendments to the Economic Stabilisation Regulations ■were an evasion of the whole issue. - “Notwithstanding that a substantial increase in export income was expected and forecast by the federation’s advocate, and also that the federation’s case was an argument for a return to economic stability—the Government had already created instability—the Court said it could not grant the fedt eration’s last application because it would not promote economic stability. Time has falsified the Court’s judgment,” said Mr McDonald. “What we are interested in is a fair share of the national income. The federation president (Mr F. P. Walsh) has emphasised that adjustments made in accordance with movements of the consumers’ price index alone would place the wage and salary-earners on a falling standard of living. "What the national executive of the federation will decide to do is as yet unknown. The Minister had to produce something before keeping his London appointment He is well aware that the federation’s case is now particularly well understood and supported by the industrial movement. His amended regulations and argument, together with the argument of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, are specious in the extreme, and fall on infertile ground.”