PRICE CONTROL POLICY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27112, 7 August 1953, Page 10

PRICE CONTROL POLICY

MINISTER REPLIES TO CRITICISM

“ PUBLIC INTEREST MUST COME FIRST ”

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August fl. Policy decisions on the scope of price control and import control were made by the Government from the standpoint of the public interest, said the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr J. T. Watts) today, commenting on criticism by the clothing manufacturers’ conference at Hanmer Springs this week. Mr Watts said it was clear that many persons had pronounced views one way or another on the desirability of removing Government controls on trade and industry. However, he thought he detected some inconsistency in the argument of trades who denounced price control but who were just as emphatic about the need for retaining absolute and rigid import control. The Minister said that although he tried to assist traders wherever possible they should remember that the public interest must come first. He emphasised again, he said, that the proposed import licences would be a very small proportion of the total trade, which Mr H. Chapman, the president of the industry, had estimated to be worth £36,000,000 last year. The licences were in line with the policy of the previous Government, which in 1949 had given token licences over a fairly wide field to the value of 20 per cent, of 1938 imports.