The Dominion THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1928. STATE ENTERPRISES AND EFFICIENT SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 259, 2 August 1928, Page 8

The Dominion THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1928. STATE ENTERPRISES AND EFFICIENT SERVICE

A most illuminating discussion took place recently in Queensland on the subject of State business enterprises. Queensland, as most people know, has been under the rule of a Labour-Socialist Government for a good many years past. It has been the home of numerous State industrial and trading experiments, and has an unenviable record of failures to its discredit. At the last Queensland Labour Convention the subject of State enterprises came up for discussion on a motion declaring that the Socialistic ideal of the Labour Party called for better social service oenerally from the workers. Put in plain every-day language the motion was in effect an admission of the failure of State enterprises because of the refusal of the workers engaged in those enterprises to give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. The. worker, inf act, under a Labour-Socialist Government loafed on his job, and the rest of the community had to pay the piper. . . „ This is not an opinion expressed by “Tories” or “capitalists or any of those unhappy people derided and condemned by the LabourSocialist. It is the considered opinion of leading -members of the Queensland Labour-Socialist Party, including the Premier himself. Indeed, the Premier (Mr. McCormack) was one of the most outspoken of the members of the Labour Convention on the subject. That there may be no doubt in the matter his own words, in speaking to the motion referred to above, may be quoted. Here is an extract: PvAwn-pr McCormack said Labour's objective and practically the mam nl-ink in its platform was the nationalisation of industry. There -mod wages while the conditions and accommodation provided Mere also vet the Government could not carry that enterprise on without incessant ‘and constant trouble. Men who did not S l ™ any troubleto the Colonial Sugar Refining Company gave constant trouble to the State mills. Babinda mill had been handed over to the farmers, and the efficiency was 30 per cent, higher, while there was no sign of trouble. It made one think and hesitate.

This report is not a biased or distorted presentation of the Premier’s remarks. It is taken from the New Zealand Worker, which copied it from the Queensland Worker, and both these are official papers of the Labour cause in their respective countries. . It is a frank confession of the failure of State Socialism of Industrial Etiteiprises, but it is more than that. It affords a direct proof of the danger underlying the fanciful schemes of the Labour-Socialist group under which the men engaged on industries conducted by the State regard themselves as their own bosses. There is another point of interest. Mr. McCormack said he had expected that the responsibility of ownership would compel the workers engaged in State industrial enterprises to give good service. That is the sort of thing we hear from our own Labour-Socialists. Instead of this happy state of things, however, the service they got in Queensland was very bad. Mr. McCormack quoted as an instance the~mines at Chillagoe. He knew the service given there by the workers was bad, he said, because he had worked in those mines himself. “Lef the Government had paid the men there three times more than the [private] had paid. _ This is, indeed, a startling admission front a Labour-Socialist Premier. AH. McCormack, however, was equally frank in admitting that the Government could not continue to keep nationalised enterprises going at a loss which had to be made up by the taxpayers, as increased taxation meant increased cost of living.

There were many other admissions of equal significance, but space does not permit their quotation on the. present occasion. What is of importance to us in New Zealand is to bear in mind that Queensland, after many years of Labour -Socialist rule, has to. admit the failure of the main plank in its policy, the nationalisation or industry. Here in New Zealand our own Laboui-Socialises me striving to saddle this Dominion with the burden of a similar polidy, equally’doomed to failure, at a heavy cost to the whole community.