REASON PREVAILS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 56, 7 March 1942, Page 6

REASON PREVAILS

Wisely, it would seem, a CommiUee of both Houses of the Australian Federal Legislature has recommended modifications of Government control of business in shares and land and the limitation of dividends to 4 per cent. The original plan appears to have been conceived and applied without sufficient thought given to its consequences. Its announcement created at least consternation among investors, many of them people of moderate means. Capital in paidup and debenture issues of the value of some £307,000,000 was virtually frozen. Marketing in shares was suspended, and therefore values of investments were problematical. Many people, too, who had pledged high-class share and debenture holdings in sound and well-managed undertakings against bankers' and other loans were—not unreasonably —much alarmed. And all this at a time when events were happening in the East Indies with dramatic suddenness, causing genuine and by no means groundless anxiety for the safety of Australia itself. It is, then, gratifying to record thai the committee above referred to has shown the Government a way out of the difficulties its legislation had created, and at the same time how to achieve a modified control. All will depend upon the way the modified regulations are applied, for the need of applying tact and caution in control of industry, finance, and commerce was never greater than today. Calmness has now become a cardinal virtue.