WICKED OIL MONOPOLIES.

Evening Star, Issue 25927, 19 October 1946, Page 6

WICKED OIL MONOPOLIES.

Little by little Government spokesmen are coming more into the open about the ireal reasons behind Labour’6 decision to enter the wholesale and retail trade in oil in this country, and it is likely that as the election campaign proceeds the party’s speakers may be still incautious. When the legislation was forced through Parliament at the end of the session Ministers were extremely virtuous about the deal, arguing that here was a move to introduce British enterprise into the Dominion and follow the lead of other nations in the Commonwealth. The new corporation, it was said, was merely being given the opportunity to operate alongside the existing companies. Mr (Nash has since waxed wrathful about monopolies, and has argued that it is wrong for the oil business in the Dominion to be controlled by five companies. It is surely a stretch of the imagination to suggest that the existence of five separate companies in the oil business in this country constitutes a monopoly. The very nature of the oil business under modern conditions makes efficient operation in a small way impossible. Thirty years ago oil was brought to New Zealand in tins and drums, shipped as ordinary cargo, and it would have been possible for any number of companies to operate. Today, the great variety of petroleum products in common use ,are brought in bulk in tankers, stored in bulk containers and dispensed through pumps, a form of business that must be done on a big scale to be efficient. The public has benefited very largely from that system, because, in spite of the very heavy taxes levied on motor spirit by the Government, the retail price is to-day not much more than it was a quarter of a century ago. Obviously the companies are getting very much less, and it is only the Government that is keeping up the price to the user. Mr Nash’s suggestion that the pur-

: pose of the. creation of the new Statecontrolled company is “ to have a certain supply ol petrol in this country at decent prices ” is, of course, mere window-dressing. In the House last week the Minister of Defence inferred that the five companies now in the trade made undue profits during the war. It was argued by the Opposition that the companies had done a good job for the country during the war, but Mr Jones interjected that they, had done a good job for themselves. He forbore to add that the price of petroleum products during the last seven years had been regulated by the Government, each change in price being authorised by the Minister of Supply and announced by him. If, therefore, the companies were enabled to make undue profits, the responsibility was entirely -the: Government’s. Except in unusual circumstances when the ordinary laws off supply and demand do not exist, free competition can be relied upon to ensure fair prices to the consumer It is when a Government interferes and sets up monopolies of its own that the buying public ceases to have reasonable protection. Almost all commodities that have coine under Labour’s control in its passion for socialisation have risen sharply, in price, and the public has yet to be convinced that State control in the oil industry will have any better result, in spite of. Ministerial hostility to the existing companies and veiled allegations of profH''erinp\