IDLE PAPER MILLS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1938, Page 9

IDLE PAPER MILLS

COMPANY'S ACTION

COMMENT BY MINISTER

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, October 4.

"If*this company imagines that any action savouring of racketeering is

likely to influence the present Government, then it has made a tremendous mistake," said the Minister of Education (the Hon. P. Fraser) when speaking in the Town Hall this evening on a report from Rotorua that construction on the Whakatane paper mills had been stopped until after the election and 155 men working at the mill were to be paid off. This announcement, he said, appeared to be an attempt to force the Government into giving financial assistance, but he said the directors "may as well know now that it is a tremendous mistake."

Mr. Fraser said he had just read in the evening paper a message| from which it appeared that the Whakatane pulp mills were being closed down. This v/as not the first time this had happened. In fact, it was becoming almost a habit for that company to close down when an awkward situation arose.

, "What I can read of this trouble so far reminds me that some time ago representatives of this company waited upon the Minister of Finance to ask for financial assistance,"' he said. "They were told by Mr. Nash that he could not agree to advance the money asked for because it would first be necessary to have a full inquiry made into the financial position and history and prospects of the company. Mr. Nash decided that it would take some time to make the required investigation. Apparently because the Minister was not prepared to spring \ forward with the money in both hands, a number of men were put off. That was four or five months ago."

Therefore, he continued, he was not surprised to read of a repetition of that process, this time on the eve of the election, with the obvious intention of forcing the Government into giving financial assistance to the company. •

"The Government is not going to do that sort of thing on the eve of an election or any other time," Mr. Fraser emphasised. (Applause.) "It would be wrong for any Government to give money to any concern without first making the fullest inquiry into the affairs and prospects of that concern. I do not know the full details of the latest development, but I know that the Government would have been prepared to make a minute inquiry into the position of this company to find whether it is sound and comprises the beginning of a valuable economic industry, but if the company imagines that any action savouring of racketeering is likely to influence the Government, then it has made a tremendous mistake and the directors might as well know that now."

I The whole thing was utterly ridicuilous, he said. The company would do much better if it wanted assistance by co-operating with the Government. It was to be deplored that any private concern or public body would do anything else on the eve of an election than its utmost to keep men in employment. At a time such as this there was naturally a certain lack of full cohesion in departmental work, and there was nothing to be gained by creating awkward situations. He had no doubt that something could be done to help the men who were losing work at the Whakatane mills.