Import controls supported

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32885, 7 April 1972, Page 11

Import controls supported

Import controls are recognised as the modern and progressive way of dealing with the convulsive effects of international trade, the president of the Canterbury Trades Council (Mr R. A. Hill) said yesterday.

He was commenting on a statement by the Dominion president of the British Trade Association (Mr C. E. Dowling), printed in “The Press” on April 4. Mr Dowling said that the relaxation of import controls was not responsible for, and did not aggravate, unemployment in New Zealand. Mr Hill disagreed with Mr Dowling’s criticism of what Mr Dowling had termed “bureaucratic controls.” “When will these people learn to understand that the days of laissez-faire are gone for ever? Even the. Hoiyoake, .Marshall,/ Muldoon administration imposes building controls,' , price controls, profit controls, and of course, first dnd foremost, wages controls,” said Mr Hill. “Why should Mr Dowling compiain about the Labour Party’s being dedicated to bureaucratic controls? “ ‘The Press’ of April 5 reported that the United States is determined to hold quotas. (Another name for import controls in the United States.) Britain itself is now preparing to control the imports of all New Zealand exports when joining the E.E.C.,” he said. “Mr Dowling quite rightly says, ‘This policy may nave some short-term benefits in

ensuring minimum employment and encouraging investment.’ “Why ‘short-term’? New Zealand has been the only country in the capitalist world to have enjoyed full employment through the forties, fifties, and sixties until Mr Muldoon came along determined to abandon import controls,” said Mr Hill. “It is this determination which has undermined confidence and brought about the present unemployment.”