MEETING THE ATTACK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1945, Page 4

MEETING THE ATTACK

While the necessity for the formation of such an organisation as the Dominion Council of the Co-ordinated Business Associations may be regretted, there is unfortunately no question that the dangers which it has been formed to resist are very real. Sectionalism of any kind is to be deplored, as its inevitable result is to hinder that spirit of co-operation and mutual understanding which is essential if the many problems with which this country will have to contend are to be successfully overcome. What is most needed in this country today is a determination on the part of all interests to work together for the common weal. It has become increasingly evident recently, however, that the efforts .of one section are being concentrated in an endeavour to force set ideas on the people as a whole. We are convinced that this section does not represent a majority of the public, and it may not even represent a majority of the people who have supported the Labour Party, but recent events have shown all too clearly that it has been able to exert a strong influence not only over the Labour Conference (which lays down the party policy) but over Ministers of the Crown. This has been exemplified in a number of ways, and notably in the proposal to acquire the Bank of New Zealand. This section has succeeded in the space of a year in reversing the clearly-expressed decision of the Labour Conference that such a step was unnecessary and in causing the Minister of Finance to undergo in even a shorter space of time a complete change of front.

The success achieved by this vociferous section of the Labour Party in respect of banking policy is but one pointer to what is happening in New Zealand today. During six years of war the people'have been subjected to all kinds of controls, and most of these they have accepted, not with enthusiasm, but in the realisation that a large measure of\State regimentation is inevitable in a \period of national emergency. In some respects, we believe, the Government has made use of the emergency to'-tighten its bureaucratic grip on the people., There is, for instance!, the lands sales legislation, which was designed largely as a stabilising measure but which, in its .operation, has proved both cumbersome and unduly restrictive of the rights of the individual. It is now becoming increashagly clear that, having tasted the poM rer' which controls confer, the Labour Party, or, at least, that section which is apparently able to impose its will on the party, is setting out on a deliberate policy of general and far-reaching regimentation. It has become much, more than a question of exercising controls to meet the needs of the war situation; it has become a question of controlling for control's sake. By using to the full the influence it is able to exert over the Labour Conference and the Government, a clamorous section of the party is seeking to impose its will on the people as a whole, with an irresponsibility and a lack of regard for the best interests of the nation that cannot fail to give rise to feelings of dismay in the minds of thinking people.

How are-these trends to be counIttered? As we have said, sectionalism of any kind is regrettable, but when a calculated attack is being made on the rights of individuals, rights which should never be in question, and when the attackers are able to impose their will on the Government, the need for defending those rights becomes obvious. We believe that a majority of the public are strongly opposed to the course which the Government seems determined to follow, but individual protests, or protests by small groups, can achieve little. That being so, the Council of Co-ordinated Business Associations can serve a useful purpose by organising public opinion and acting as the .mouthpiece of that opinion. It can also serve a useful purpose by bringing home to all those who subscribe generally to its views the necessity for an unselfish approach to the question of controls. It is undoubtedly true that controls have been welcomed by some sections because they have conferred some advantage, even if only temporary, but the point should not be overlooked that every form of control, whether it is temporarily advantageous or not to those brought under it, interferes with the rights of somebody else. There must, therefore, be a recognition that controls, when they are not clearly shown to be in the'interests of the-people as a whole, are inherently bad and must be fought both by those who may gain some temporary advantage from their application and by those who suffer from them. If the new organisation is able to encourage the growth of such an outlook- and is able to build up a strong public resistance to regimentation and to the growing trend towards irresponsible socialistic experimentation its work should be of real and lasting value to New Zealand.