STATE ACTIVITIES AND PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

Evening Star, Issue 19919, 16 July 1928, Page 3

STATE ACTIVITIES AND PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

WHERE THEY CLASH

(Nineteen Twenty-eight Committee.)

A clay or two ago a. deputation waited upon the Hon. A. D. M'Lcocl, Minister of Lands and Minister of Industries and Commerce, with a proposal that the Government should take over the Wanganui River service, which has been in existence for nearly half a century, and now, it seems, is Likely_ to be abandoned by its present proprietors unless they can dispose of it ns a going concern. The Minister, it is stated, in a very brief summary of his interview' with the deputation, explained that “it was not the policy of the Government to take over private businesses if it could be at all avoided/’ but “ it would bo prepared to consider the question of a subsidy.” Tho statement was a perfectly right and proper one, and Mr M'Leod no doubt will be as good as his word. It may be permissible to point out, however, that it always is possible for the Government to avoid taking over private businesses, and that it should be comparatively easy to do so in cases where the present proprietors are preparing them. In the course of his contribution to the Address-in-Eeply _ debate in the House of Representatives Mr A. Harris, the member for Waitemata, reminded his political friends of their duty to the State and the community. There was no doubt, he said, that New Zealand was drifting towards Socialism. That state of affairs might pleas'e the Labour Party, but it was perilous to the/welfare of the country. The gradual, indeed rapid, increase of State activities within the-sphere of private enterprise was causing .great concern. . . . If there was one tiling New Zealand needed more than another it was encouragement ,of the- utilisation of private capital. ■ .Unfair , competj-

tion on the part of the State must act detrimentally upon tho whole community. In some cases private capita) had been ruthlessly confiscated. . . . For the State to encroach upon private enterprise in an unfair way was io strike at the very root of national prosperity. It was, in short, simply suicidal. All this, it must ho remembered, was from the lips of a political friend. In tho course of tho same debate Mr George Forbes, the member for Hurumii, who is not on the same side of politics as Mr Harris, and perhaps i-poke with more bias than did tho member for Wnitcmata, strongly condemned tho attempts of the Railway Department to rim the privatelyowned buses off the roads. This development of State interference, ho said, was going to cost the country thousands of pounds without adding anything to the revenue of tho department. Tho loss on tho buses simply would be added to tho loss on tho railways. Mr Forbes did nob go too deeply into details, and maybe when the Prime Minister comes to reply ho will put a different complexion upon tho situation; but meanwhile there is a widespread feeling, not confined to any particular section of the community, that tho Railway Department is not getting the better of tho transport war. Here again, however, perhaps judgment should bo suspended until the new General Manager has had an opportunity to become acquainted with tho whole position and to put his own remedies into operation.