LICENSED INDUSTRIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 December 1940, Page 10

LICENSED INDUSTRIES

STEP TOWARD SOCIALISATION Strong criticism of the Licensed Industries Regulations, which he describes as “the greatest single step toward socialisation of private property in business which he has found in the laws of any country excepting Russia,” is expressed in a statement by the immediate past president of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, Mr. W. Machin. “The licensed Industries Regulations, 1940, have now been issued by Orders-in-Council N 0.279,” he states. “I regard them as the most flagrant piece of what Lord Hewart in his book, ‘The New Despotism,’ calls ‘Administrative lawlessness’ we have yet seen in New Zealand. They are obviously not a war measure, as the Industrial Efficiency Act was passed in 1936, and these are its working regulations.

“This Act gives the Minister for industries and Commerce (on the advice of the Bureau of Industry) power to declare any industry or business in New Zealand shall, from a specified date, be carried on only under a licence from the Department; and the sole court of appeal is the Minister himself, and his decisions are final. The new regulations shall apply to any industry (including any trade, manufacturing, distributing, wholesale or retail) which may be publicly notified hereafter by the bureau, so that any morning the owners of any business in New Zealand may wake up to find that they cannot legally continue their business unless each has a licence from the bureau; which licence may be revoked by the bureau at any time at six months’ notice, if the bureau thinks the (stringent) conditions of the licence are not being met, or if in the opinion of the bureau the business is not achieving economic production, or is not able to produce goods of suitable quality, or is unable to meet changing needs of markets. ■ “Each licence shall ‘imply’ the following conditions:— “The business shall not be carried on at any other address than that stated.

“The price at which the business may be sold is governed by the bureau; this also applies to its products. “The licensee must comply with the future requirements of the bureau as to specifications, methods and processes. He must keep his premises, plant and production, and his service to his customers up to the requirements of the buerau. “He may not sell supplies, or withhold supplies, or make supplies of goods against the opinion of the bureau, nor impose business terms and conditions which, in the opinion of the bureau, ought not to have been imposed.

“He must keep his accounts and records to the satisfaction of, and in (such form and details as the bureau requires, and supply the balancesheets, profit and loss accounts and trading accounts, and such other returns, statistics, and information relating to the business as the bureau may reasonably require. “His prices are to be controlled, also any additions to his land, buildings, or plant. He may not increase his output or productive capacity; he shall not purchase goods or raw materials for use by him in the said industry except from sources of supply specified in the licence.

i “Nor may he sell through any other ' agents or by any other methods than . those specified in the licence; and keep the bureau supplied with specimens I of all goods manufactured dr sold, for testing purposes, and he must obtain special permission before selling any second quality or inferior goods.

“MASTERPIECE OF INQUISITION”

“There are many other restrictions' referring to share capital, the personal qualifications of owners to engage in their industry either in technical or financial resources, etc. “For bearing all these fetters, he must pay ‘an annual licence fee of £ 1, and an annual levy of 1-8 of 1 per cent, of his sales turnover,’ and he must pay these both within one month of the first issue of the licence; therefore presumably on the turnover of the year before he was licensed. “The statement which must accompany the application for a licence is a masterpiece of departmental inquisition for finding out every technical, trade, and financial secret in a business. These regulations are the greatest single step towards socialisation of private property in business which I have read in the laws of any country excepting Russia. They are only, of course, the practical application of the idealism of the Socialist Party, but to make them the law of the land by Order-in-Council while Parliament was in recess, especially in a period of nominal political truce, while war engages everyone, seems outrageous. “Fortunately the last clause of the original Act requires all regulations made under it to be laid before both Houses of Parliament within 14 days after the commencement of the next | session, so within the next 10 days I there should be an explosion. “I write to suggest that every businessman, and everyone who expects to retain the right to be free to engage in the normal business of the Dominion in future, should get a copy of these regulations and study them, and consider their probable results to the prosperity of this Dominion and the individual liberty of its nationals. “It this does not give such a shock to the whole commercial community of New Zealand—big and little—as to make them turn on bureaucracy and sternly say, ‘Stop this fooling,’ I shall begin to wonder what is this liberty which we profess to regard so -highly, and which some cherish so carelessly.”