"STILL LACKING"

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 67, 17 September 1917, Page 6

"STILL LACKING"

The Masterton. ■ Chamber of Commerce bewails New Zealand's lack of organisa= tion. The. Chamber affirms that " the. patvitjUt! spirit shown in the *»crific«9 made of manhood and money continue*

without abatement, • but for organising producing power, manufactures, and industries nothing has been done,' although local authorities, Farmers! Unions, Chambers of Commerce, and Labour organisations exist ready to devote their energies to the work so urgently needed if given the opportunity." The -reason why the machine does not go is the difference of tactics between the politicians and the economists. The organisers on the National Efficiency Board thought that they had provided an excellent class of motor spirit—non-alcoholic—but the party managers found it to be too stimulative for the political engine. In motor parlance/ they pronounced it to be "too rich a mixture," arid, in order to let more political air into it, they fiddled with the. carburetter—with the usual consequence. As things are now, no one knows what sort of a mUcure will result when the Government his completed its new semi-political advisory body. There may be more political air than motor spirit, or perhaps the position would be reversed; but meanwhile the machine lies idle. And that is why the Masterton Chamber \>f Commerce laments that " entry upon the fourth year of the war finds New Zealand still lacking in the matter of organisation generally." New Zealand is in the hands of a. political compromise-r-a blend that makes for peace rather than for power or progress. But. no sort of political substitute now within practical vision would be likely to work so well; and it is, on the whole, better to put up with the devil you know. ' . . ■