STATE TRADING

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 184, 2 May 1933, Page 10

STATE TRADING

Justice Demanded for Private Enterprise PRIVILEGED COMPETITION Dominion Special Service. Wanganui, May 1. Drawing attention to the increasing growth of State enterprise, Mr. A. O. Heany, secretary of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in an address to-day to the Wanganui Chamber of Commerce, urged that new legislative proposals should, on principle, be examined for their effect on private enterprise and endeavour. Mr. Heany said that a criticism frequently directed at opponents of State enterprise was that their ideas belonged to the Victorian era, and that in these enlightened days the needs and realities of modern government could recognise practically no limits to the sphere of governmental activity. Examples of Expansion. It had to be admitted, however, said the speaker, that the great trouble with State enterprise was that once started it spread far beyond the original conception. or intention. This was due partly to its own volition and partly to the impetus industriously given it by those servants placed in charge on behalf of the public. New Zealand abounded in instances of this kind. The Public Trust Office had exceeded the functions of trusteeship for which it was established, and had gone in for borrowing and lending. The Railways Department, whose function was that of a land carrier, had branched out into its own workshops, and was now competing with private engineering concerns in the supply of manufactured goods to Government departments. Besides this, it had undertaken publishing activities and road transport, housing, and the operation of steamers, and had substituted its own employees for lessees of station bookstalls. The Cook Islands Department had initiated new competition with Cook Islands fruit by the operation of a vessel of its own. The Department of Health had grown into possession of its own doctors and dentists. The Department of Agriculture had become a vendor of poisons and wines. The Public Works Department, basically a constructional department, had taken over the operation of the State’s elec 7 trie power schemes, the operation of sawmills and quarries, the building of houses, and architectural work. Ail these extended activities came into direct and unfair competition with private enterprise. A Fixed Principle. The National Expenditure Commission had said that the ramifications of State enterprise could not be realised unless close examination of State departments were undertaken, continued Mr. Heany. Other public bodies were not free from this disturbing development. Power boards, established as distributing agents for the Government, had gone beyond the sale of power and were dealing, tax free, in electrical appliances, including even radio sets, while the private trader tried to go on competing under the weight of his rates and taxes. Tax-free municipal departments had moved on to trading in electrical and gas appliances, and even in tinned meat. The trading activities of national and local government were splayed out in every direction like the branches of a growing tree. Already national ami local government had crossed all boundaries in this country. Where was it going to end? Who would be the next to be affected by this insidious and privileged competition? Those who ridiculed ideas of restricting the activities of the State could not say where it would end. The thing had gone beyond them. “We can hope for no alleviation as long as we continue to drift aimlessly, with no fixed principle, looking to Government as a universal provider, or tolerating it as such.” said Mr.-Heany. “In time there will be no one else but the State to look to—not even ourselves, since the liberty of the individual, that has been won by travail, will have been filched away in apathy. “Private enterprise wants no more than its freedom and just treatment Public trading concerns should be taxed the same as private enterprise. Legislation and regulation have raised a forest of fences and sign-posts in front of private endeavour, but it must go its own way. If every new proposal for legislative or regulative action were examined from the standpoint of wh°- 4 ther it would be harmful to private en-‘ terprise .and individual endeavour, we would be setting our compass on a guiding principle that would keep us from the shoals.”