WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1943. NO RELIEF FROM CONTROLS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 72, 22 September 1943, Page 4

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1943. NO RELIEF FROM CONTROLS

"It is impossible for this country to develop itself to the full if it lets controls go on imports and exports," declared the Minister of Finance (Mr. | Nash) in his speech at Petone last night. An immediate question prompted by this statement is how it is that in the past, before the present control measures were instituted, and when people were free to make their own business and financial arrangements, New Zealand was able to make such remarkable progress as her history proves her to have done. The impression that Labour speakers consistently endeavour to convey is that before the present Government came to office everything was wrong, and that since everything has been right. Certain measures of control have been made inevitable as a result of war conditions; and in the transition period following the war it will be necessary to continue them for a while, but that is not to say that they should become a permanent feature of policy. New Zealand has had a long and in many respects a bitter experience of bureaucratic control and the sooner it is lifted the sooner will the country breathe more freely again. But the policy of import restriction which Mr. Nash' suggests will have to continue into the post-war' period was not a war measure; it was instituted early in 1939, after Labour had been safely returned to office, in order to restore the economic balance which the "spend for prosperity" policy of the Government from 1935 onwards had so seriously upset.

What import selection really means is that the responsible Minister and a small band of officials are placed in the position of judges of what is best for the people and of how the people should be allowed to spend their own money. If this policy is to be continued after the war, then the people have little prospect of regaining the measure of freedom which they are surely entitled to exercise. It amounts to much more than protection of New Zealand There are many things people desire and need that are not produced in New Zealand and possibly cannot be produced economically. Are Government officials to have the right to say to those who have the means and desire to import such goods that they cannot do so? Are Government officials to have the right to say to people who desire to use their money for the purpose of making trips abroad that they must either remain in New Zealand or be content to make the trips on an amount that the Government decides is sufficient? Are people to be debarred from investing their own money where they wish and how they wish? That has been the experience of the people of New Zealand under the policy which Labour has pursued since early in 1939, a policy dictated by the disastrous results of the Government's own actions.

What the people as a whole desire more than anything is a return to the freedom they previously enjoyed to make their own decisions in accordance with their own legitimate desires, unhampered by the dictation of Ministers and Government officials. That is one of the principal issues on which the election is being fought—whether bureaucratic control, with its emphasis on the assumption that the State is better qualified to manage the affairs of the individual than the individual himself, is to be retained, or whether there is to be a return to the right of the individual to exercise his own judgment and initiative, assisted by the State where such assistance is shown to be necessary and desirable. Mr. Nash has made it clear where Labour stands on the issue. Fortunately, the National Party, which offers itself as an alternative to the present Government, has also made its position clear. It will direct its attention to ways of making control unnecessary, not to finding new excuses for new adventures in regimentation.