GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 261, 4 August 1928, Page 15

GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

LABOUR’S EXPERIENCE UNSATISFACTORY SERVICE RENDERED (Contributed by the 1928 Committee.) Government interference with private business is rather a matter of policy than a matter of politics. It is well to bear this fact in mind when discussing a subject which has begun to attract a good deal of interested attention in this country. The point may be illustrated-by a few extracts from a speech delivered at the May Convention of the Queensland Labour Party by Mr. W. McCormack, the head of the present Queensland Labour Government. Mr. McCormack did not talk of politics, but of the deplorable failure of the Government’s excursion into business. The service the State obtained at Chillogoe was bad, he said. He knew that, because he had worked at the mines there; and yet the Government had paid “the men engaged three times more than the private company had paid. The Government could not keep nationalised enterprises going at a loss, because that would mean more taxation and'an increase in the cost of living. Labour could control industry, provided it gave the social service necessary towards that end; but the idea of going slow in order to create employment was a bad and a rotten one. “Makes One Think.” Summarising his experiences of State interference with private enterprise, Mr. McCormack was quite frank. The Government, he told the convention, had been absolutely compelled to close down the State’s business enterprise because it could not get the service necessary to render them sufficiently profitable to justify their continuance. There was no doubt in the case of the sugar mills that “boss” rule had. ruined the State undertaking. At the Babinda mill the conditions were excellent in every respect, and yet the Government could not carry on the enterprise without incessant trouble. Men who had occasioned no worry at all to the Colonial Sugar Company were a constant hindrance and annoyance during the State’s operation of the mill. Finally, the concern was handed over to the farmers in the district, and its efficiency at once was increased by 30 per cent., and there was no longer any trouble with the men. “It makes one think and hesitate,” was Mr. McCormack's reflection upon the outcome of the Government’s experiment. The discussion in which the Queensland Prime Minister took part was initiated by Mr. Randolph Bedford, another member of the Queensland Parliament, who submitted to the convention a motion, which was ultimately carried, :o the effect that the education of rhe people to more efficient service, both in State and private enterprise, was a condition precedent to the achievment of Socialism. Policy of Drift. It is evident that Mr. McCormack and his colleagues have, reached a stage in their State enterprises at which, they well may “think and hesitate.” It is not for New Zealand, however, to -chide them with their trading proclivities. The Dominion has gone a very considerable way along the same road,, and has not yet mustered up courage/enough to proclaim a definite halt. It has drifter) into competition with private enterprise, rather than ’ deliberately entered upon the perilous paths of trade and commerce, and has acquired a score or two business responsibilities which are altogether outside the range of legitimate .State adventures. Unfortunately, there is no ready means of ascertaining how much these responsibilities are costing the taxpayers of all degrees... The. Prime Minister, is doing his best to obtain the balance sheets upon which his predecessor in office insisted but apparently many heads of depart-ments-still manage to evade the requirements of the situation. It would be quite safe to assume, however, that ninctenths of these State trading concerns are being run at a loss, and are contributing nothing to the comfort and welfare of the community that could not be at least well supplied by private’ enterprise. The Prime Minister of Queensland, whatever his politics may be,' has quoted actual experiences which the Dominion well might consider.