Parliament’s Criticism

Franklin Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 9, 24 January 1940, Page 3

Parliament’s Criticism

WANTED: A DECONTROLLER ‘At the beginning of the war Parliament passed a number of Bills, almost without discussion, giving the Government extraordinary powers to control almost every phase of life and business. Few of the members realised what they were doing. I remarked afterwards to one of them: ‘You have abolished everything except Parliament. Even the petition of Right has gone, by the board.’ “Almost instantaneously the whole face of the country was blacked out and covered with controllers and deputy-controllers. It had all been pie-arranged and planned; but it was soon found that preparedness had been overdone, that immense sums were being fasted, that the ome trade was being stifled, that exports were being strangled, and that the suppression of markets, like Billingsgate, was an unendurable calamity. “Then, the value of Parliament was manifested. The fish control has been abolished, and the growing volume of .complaints against coalrestrictions, timber-restrictions, woolrestrictions, etc., is compelling Ministers to attend to the grievances for which their underlings and decr«ess are responsible. “But the remedy is not mending, hut ending; not tightening, but relaxing; not extending, but suspending. We want a decontroller. “Lord Stamp has a great opportunity. I hope he will use it. As supreme Economic Adviser to the Government he should be able to deal drastically with the delays and futile restrictions that hamper our exports and curtail the legitimate business on which the productive incomes of our citizens, and ultimately the revenues of the State, depend.”—Mr Francis Hirst, the economist, in the “Yorkshire Post.”