STATE CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 31, 6 August 1923, Page 8

STATE CONTROL

EXPORT OF DAIRY

PRODUCE

OBJECTION TO COMPULSORY CLAUSES

RESOLUTION OF CHAMBER OF

COMMERCE,

The Council of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce passed the following resolution at a meeting held to.-.day :— That this Chamber views with serious apprehension the action of the Government in adopting schemes which have for their object the control, shipping and marketing of the primary products of this country, and that the Government be urged to eliminate all compulsory clauses in the ■ proposed Dairy Produce Export Bill; further that this resolution be sent to every New Zealand Chamber of Commerce.

In moving the resolution, Mr.' J. T. Martin said that during the la&i.'few years there had been a growing disposition on the part of our "politicians to interfere with trade and commerce, and to divert a large part of the business activities o£ the country into new and unexplored channels. Just when "and how this tendency had its origin it would be difficult to say. Wo had State Railways, State Life and Fire Insurance, State Advances to Settlers, and a State Trust Office long before the Great War, and there was no vei-y grave objection to their existence. They dealt with more or less national interests, and, though their policy and their management frequently provoked criticism, their presence was accepted as an accomplished fact. We also had State Coal Mines, and one or two other small experiments in State trading, but the results they gave were not sufficiently satisfactory to encourage any further adventures in the same direction. But since the war, and particularly since the "slump" which followed upon the war's inflation of prices, there had been this growing disposition on the part of the politicians towards State interference with the trading and business enterprises of the Dominion. WHAT HAS HAPPENED ELSEWHERE. "We have in existence," remarked | Mr Martin, "a Meat Producers' Board, armed with coercive powers, which places the whole meat trade of . the country at its . mercy, and we are threatened with a Dairy Produce Control Board that is to be equipped with still more exclusive authority. Then there are proposals, supported by many politicians, if not actually proposed by them, for an agricultural bank, a shipping line, a wool pool, a fruit pool, a revived wheat subsidy, and a number of minor enterprises of the same kind. Some of these would not be State enterprises in the ordinary sense of the term, since the State would not control their policy nor make it-self directly responsible for their management, but on that account they would be all the more perilous to the community and still more certain of ultimate failure. "The really astounding thing about the attitude of the politicians and their ■ followers in this matter of State con- i trol is their utter disregard of what has, happened JR.pther countries. Australia equipped itself with numbers of State trading enterprises—shipping, butchering, fishing, and the rest. They all resulted in more or less serious loss," and the Commonwealth and its States are getting out of them as quickly as they possibly can. England, guided by the best business brains in the world, got rid of its State control of railways and other undertakings forced upon it by the war as speedily as circumstances would permit. The United States lost an almost fabulous sum in building Stato ships, and Canada many millions in a similar enterprise. But both countries, realising their huge blunder, cut the loss and took the lesson to heart. DESPOTIC POWERS. "And yet, several years after all these things happened, New Zealand is menaced by a similar spasm of disastrous experiments. The one nearest at hand seems to be the Dairy Produce Export Control Bill. This Bill empowers the Government, through the Minister of Agriculture; to approve or otherwise of all nominations to a board to be set up called the New Zealand Dairy Produce Control Board; the board to be vested with such extraordinary controlling and despotic powers that the most extreme section of the Labour Party in their wildest flights of imagination never thought such could possibly emanate from a- sober-minded Government that set out to protect so carefully the farming interests of this country.

APPROACH TO LABOUR'S IDEALS,

"This Bill," continued Mr. Martin, ".is a nearer approach to the Labour Party's own ideals of the nationalisation of the country's industries than any Bill they could themselves have brought down with even a remote hope of passing into law. If it had been introduced by the Labour Party, the Government would have immediately seized upon it as a sinister attempt on behalf of the town workers to control production at its source, and distribute the food to the masses at a price which the consuming public considered fair and reasonable, without much or any reference to whether such prices paid the farm producer or not.

"This, Dairy Control Board gives the board absolute and despotic power to stop the export, sale, and distribution of dairy produce, except under a license from the board, to control all handling and storage, to fix shipping contracts without, reference to any factory, to dispose of the whofe of tile season's make of butter and cheese without reference "to • the directors of the factory which produced, it; to eliminate all merchants, agents, and buyers in New Zealand of dairy produce; to appoint a London agency which shall operate under instructions from the New Zealand Board, to make a levy on'every foctory of a maximum of 1b butter, and l-16d per lb cheese, equal to £1 3s 4d per ton butter, and lls 8d per ton on cheese, or a total charge of roughly £100,000 on the industry,, and to appoint whatever permanent officers it deems ■ necessary. The continuaj reference 'to a board which could not be constantly in session for license or freedom to act' would mean interminable delays in conducting business by cable, would hamper trade, and result in such restrictive conditions that it is inconceivable how business could be carried on.

"Commilsory control means the forfeituva by every dairy factory in this country of the right to market its own produce and can only lead in the end to dissatisfaction and loss. Board 3, pools, co-operative associations, and such like bodies are usually composed of farmers, who, no matter how capable and enterprising they may be in the management of their farms, cannot reasonably be expected to have that ■ grasp and knowledge of the intricate and often delicate operations of finance and marketing that belongs to business men who have specialised in it for years. Once the producers realise that no Board

of Control can exact a fraction more in any market than the commodity is worth, that all attempts to stem the downward tendency of any market or unduly inflate an upward market has a reactionary effect on the party that attempts it, that their Board of Control fits right into the Labour Party's objective of socialisation of industry, then | they will seek a way out and attempt to eliminate all this compulsory control, but it may then be 100 late, and they will probably find that the political party which put the law on the Statute Book is unable to rescind it." AN EMPHATIC PROTEST. Mr. C. H. Young-, in seconding the motion, said that during the war, when international conditions were in a chaotic state,. assistance had been rendered by the Government in this and other countries in maintaining supplies of our primary products to the people of Great Britain, but in normal times the question of State interference or control was quite a different matter. It was, he contended, doubtful whether even a majority of the farmers of New Zealand were in favour of the Dairy Export Control Bill. If the measure was passed it would mean that all farmers would be compelled to have their produce brought under the scheme. He thought an emphatic protest should be made by all the Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand. Mr. A. Leigh Hunt did not think the case had been quite fairly put. Similar arguments were used against the Meat Export control Act. It was said that the new board would ride roughshod over everybody, and that the board would run meat-shops, etc. But things had turned out differently. One or more capable business men had been appointed to the Meat Board. He suggested that before action was taken, the question should be carefull considered by a committee of the Chamber. WHERE WILL IT END? The president, Mr. John Myers, remarked that if they allowed this new proposal in regard to dairy produce to be carried out, they did not know where it would all end. Why should not business people have the right to ask for similar assistance from the State? He could see no objection to the dairy people carrying out a co-operative concern, but compulsion was quite another matter. He supported the resolution. VARIOUS INTERESTS INVOLVED. Mr. H. D. Bennett thought the time had come when the business community and members of the Chambers of Commerce should get together, put their thinking caps on, and form themselves into a sort of defence association for the purpose of showing the rest of the community that the State could not carry on on the general lines which had been adopted by some of our farmer friends. Some of the farmers seemed to hold the idea that the world began and ended with the farming classes. He could speak from a farmer's point of view as well as from the point of view of commerce, and he knew that many farmers were inclined to go too far. They seemed to forget that the world was made up of different interests, and that the price of the product of the land was only what it was to-day because of the existence of various bodies and organisations; they seemed to forget that commerce was necessary. The general attack on the Government was, he though, far-fetched. So long as the compulsory clauses were not introduced, and so long as these schemes did not interfere with the . ordinary fair and reasonable trade of the country, he did not object. Personally, he thought there v.-as'.'rodm. for-control of- the quantities of produce exported. They had had experiences in the past of allowing large shipments at certain seasons of the year, and the result had been a glut of the Home market; whereas if some control had been exercised and reasonable quantities sent, the market would have remained steady. He would support a proposal against Government compulsion, but he admitted the right of the producers to exercise a certain amount of control in regard to the export of their goods. He criticised State shipping, and some of the "fantastic" banking proposals now before the House.

Some discussion ensued in regard to the terms of the resolution, and the motion was ultimately adopted as printed above.