ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1933. TYRANNY AND COMEDY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 105, 31 October 1933, Page 8

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1933. TYRANNY AND COMEDY

Albert Koford.—As the accident may bo the subject of further proceedings, public' comment on any aspect Is uut permissible, but if your situgestion were brought before tho Automobile Club'it would receive attention. . . , . "I'almorstonlnn,"—Tho Minister's point was that wages could not bo raised in Now Zealand until prices Improved through an Improvement in the purchasing power of British 'wage-earners. . . "■ . "Ratepayer."—Provided the. association Is open and.honorary wo do not see how reasonable objection can be raised; Other councillors belong to bodies which make representations'to the'council.

1» -I Second only to the position of the Legislative Council that of the New Zealand Board of Trade deserves to be honoured as a monumental masterpiece of Parliamentary legerdemain. By an Act passed in 1914 the nominative system of appointments to the Council was abolished, but as the result of the War Coalition which was formed in the following year ihc execution of the sentence was postponed. That postponement still stands. For nineteen years the sentence has been hanging, like the swowl of Damocles, over the head of the Council. During all that time no Government has had the courage to cut the hair by which the sword is hanging. No Parliament has had the humanity tP remove the sword. No candidate has • considered the matter worth a mention. No elector has honoured ,it with a vote or even a.question. But the indifference has riot really been aa callous as it sounds, since for fourteen years at least it has been, fully shared by the condemned men. Member 3 of; the Legislative Council have been able to go about their work and their play as, usual. • ' /; ■

Alas! regardless of their doom,

Tho little victims pinyj ; No, sense havo they of ills to corno, Nor care .beyond, today.

If. the hair of.some of the little victims has turned white in the meanlime the cause is not fear hut merely the 'normal operation of old age during the long period of Availing. They know .by this time that the sword is made of wood, that it is so firmly fixed that nothing short of a political earthquake would shift it/ 'and that even then it wou,ld do them no harm. .

The history of the.Board of Trade (has been very different. It achieved a real existence in the year following the one which.gave a hypothetical existence to an elective Legislative Council. The Board of Trade did some useful w.ork during' the Wa"v, and immediately after the War it was put on a permanent existence with powers far too drastic ' for a democracy in time of peace. Four years later it was abolished, and its powers were taken over by the Government. The Government was glad a.t the same time to take over the good name . of' Board of Trade Regulations for a bureaucratic procedure by which it has ever since been encroaching on the province of Parliament and the liberties of the people. The contrast between these two closely-associated products of the War period is indeed striking. The Legislative Council of 1914, which was intended to effect a permanent and democratic change in the Constitution, was put to sleep before it had come into operation and the sleep has now lasted for nineteen years. The Board of Trade, which was established for the special purposes of the. War, was given greatly extended powers when the War was over, and has since been knocked on the head in order that by the adoption of 4 those powers the Government might' strengthen its autocracy. The principal purposes which the Board of Trade was intended to serve is sufficiently indicated by the name of the Act which brought it into being and by the duties and powers assigned to it. The Act was the Cost of Living Act, 1915. The Board of Trade was the instrument through which it was to operate, and the board was specifically empowered to investigate and report upon any alleged infringement of the Commercial Trusts Act, 1910, any "matters affecting the cost of living," or any other matter relating to the supply, demand, or price of commodities which might be referred to it, and "any complaint that the price of any class of goods is unreasonably high." There .■ were other more general powers, but those that we have mentioned cover the dominating purpose of the rheasure. That purpose might, indeed, have ;been .more succinctly indicated by putting its full title "An Act to establish a Board of Trade and to make Provision for the Regulation of Trade," and its short title "The Cost of Living Act, 1915," side by side. The mentality of the War, of course, survived the signing of peace, and New Zealand's economic troubles Became more acute. -The Cost of Living Act with its modest titles and objects was accordingly superseded in 1919 by an Act of much, wider scope. The full title of the Board of Trade Act, 1919, is

An Art to make Better Provision for the Maintenance and Control of the Industries, Trade, and Commerce of New Zealand. ' • ■

It defines "industry" as including "any trade, business, profession, or undertaking whatsoever carried on for the purpose of profit." It forti[fics this comprehensive definition of

industry with an equally comprehensive definition of the things the Government may do by regulation on the recommendation of the Board of Trade. The first is the prevention or suppression. of methods of competition, trading, or business considered to be unfair or prejudicial. The omnibus clause with which this enumeration closes sweeps everything relating to "industry" in its extended sense into the net:<—

(c) For tho regulation and control of .-•.. industries.' in, any other mannov whatever which is doomed neces- , sary for tho maintenance and pros-' pcrity of thoso industries and the economic welfare of Now Zealand.-

The last stage of this industrial tyranny was reached four years; later. "Board* of Trade Regulations" are still issued by the Government, but the board itself is. dead. It was killed ; by an amending Board of Trade Act passed in 1923, which transferred all its powers to the Minister of Industries and Commerce, that is to say, the Government. It is a far cry indeed from the Cost of Living Act to the Motor-bus Regu« lations and the Cinematograph Regulations', and all the other Regulations, which still bear the name of the Board of Trade, though it is now a mere alias for the Government. The industrial tyranny of the Government is now almost complete. It is not an alert public opinion, but the power of our Courts that prevents it from becoming absolute..

CONSTRUCTIVE EMPLOYMENT

Referring on Saturday to the statement of the Employers' Federation lhat "nothing is being done to assist in bringing about anything in the nature of a solution of the [unemployment] problem" we cited the* Government's plans for smallfarm settlement. We suggested that a ',research committee might be. able to assist in removing the barrier of land cost which appears to be impeding the progress p.f this plan. Mr, Ransom alluded to this question recently at Pahlatiia, and stated that "if land could not be bought at a reasonable price it was no use putting the unemployed on it." He added, hoSvcver, that the Government had quite recently secured a lpt of land for settlement in other parts of the country. No up-to.dnte and exact information is available-on the progress of the plan; but there is a suspicion,that it is not working out as well as was expected, and that failure to secure suitable land is part!of the trouble,, As we pointed out on Saturday such an obstacle is an anomaly. It, is claimed that farming does not afford a return for the labour cost; and the corollary of this is that the return over, labour cost is low—so low that there is »6 value in the land. Yet it cannot be bought at reasonable ,prices!

There should be more light on this question, for small-farm settlement, the family farm, is one of the prinei; pa^ means of placing suitable unemployed in a position of independence. Lord Ernie, an English authority on *this question, wrote in "The Times" when the subject was receiving close attention pointing out the advantages such a plan possessed for a time like the present. Family farms, he stated, , .

make for the stability of tho State and tho contentment of rural districts. They arrest tho progress of rural depopulation, they gratify the spirit of independence which desires to call no man master. ' Tljey stimulato in tho oecupioi's tho joy of work because each gathers for his own benefit tho produce that his own hands havo raised.

One drawback, under ordinary circumstances, is that the multiplication of small farms tends to a decrease in production for the market. The occupiers consume more of their own produce than is consumed under more economical mechanical ■ mass farming. But in present circumstances there is actually an advantage. The lot of the small occupier can be improved without the fear that an increase of marketable produce will make the glut of primary products worse. The plan is certainly one to be pushed forward at this time, if it can be done without raising,, land prices, and surely trj.e circumstances should make it possible to avoid such a rise.