FULL FACTS WANTED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 73, 22 September 1942, Page 4

FULL FACTS WANTED

If nationalisation of the coalmining industry has been under the consideration of the Government for some days, as suggested in an Auckland message published today, the public are entitled to receive from the Government a frank statement of what it has in mind. Not only arc they entitled to know at once whether this far-reaching step h contemplated, but they are entitled to lhe fullest information on what is involved. They should be told in detail what is likely to be the effect of nationalisation on the future of the. industry, upon the supply of coal as a par! of the war economy, and, above all, what will be the cost to the State. There must be no repetition of what occurred over the purchase by the State of the Blackball mine. In that case, the Government completed the deal, involving a vital question of policy and the payment of a large sum of public money, without &o much as referring the matter to Parliament. Both Parliament and the public were kept entirely in the dark until the whole transfer had been signed and sealed. There could be no excuse for such a flouting of the rights of the people. If nationalisation is now under consideration as reported, it must be more far-reaching than the Blackball transaction. It would evidently involve the purchase not of one mine but. of all mines operated by private enterprise, for it is obvious (hat, if a policy of nationalisation is adopted, it will not stop in the Waikalo. No Government, whatever the circumstances of lhe moment may be, has lhe right to make such a move before consulting the people's representatives and placing the fullest information before the public. But there is another aspect of the question that cannot be overlooked and will not be overlooked by the public. According to the Auckland message, nationalisation of the mining industry has been under the consideration of the Government lor some clays. What gave rise to this consideration? Has a pistol been held at the head of the Government? Is action which shows a ( complele clisregard for the vital needs of the nation at a time of emergency and even peril.to'be used as a reason for bringing the whole of the mining industry under the control of the State? These are questions to which the public are entitled to demand answers. Whatever the merits or demerits of nationalisation may be, the circumstances which have been responsible for raising the issue are certainly not such as to make for its successful initiation., The questions involved are so vital to the people as a whole that the issue should be decided only after the most careful consideration and after the full facts have been placed before the public. The matter cannot be left where it is. There must be an early statement from the Government both as to its intentions and to the iaclors which have given rise to the discussions which have so far taken place. ■