GREYMOUTH ENTERPRISE

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 December 1940, Page 2

GREYMOUTH ENTERPRISE

DISCOURAGED BY GOVERNMENT Emphasising a point made by Mr. W. A. Bodkin, M.P., at the Greymouth Town Hall on Saturday evening that the youth of New Zealand should be given a chance to become something more than a cog in a machine —th.e chairman, Mr. E. B. E. Taylor, quoted a. Greymouth case. Mr. Bodkin had said that there was not a young man worth his,salt who did not wish to become a little capitalist, and have a business of his own. The capitalistic system was built on the rights of individuals, but Socialism had nothing to offer. Mr. Taylor said that, recently, a young man in Greymouth saw a chance of starting a business on his own, for the manufacture of an article used as food, an article that was not being manufactured anywhere in New Zealand. He had money to start a small factory. He made inquiries, and arranged for the purchase of machinery, a certain portion of which, admittedly, would have to come from Australia. He made arrangements about the purchase of raw material, and the packing and marketing of the article. Then he found out that it was licensed under the Bureau of Industries. That young man was prepared to put his own capital into the business, and take the chance of losing it. If it went well, it would mean the existence of a factory on the West Coast, which would employ labour and distribute more money in wages. But he had now been waiting 14 weeks for permission from the Government to start in business, and he still had not received any word. That, said Mr. Taylor, was what the young people of New Zealand were faced with today, under the regulations in connection with the Bureau of Industries. The concrete instance he had quoted would bring home to the people the facts regarding the effect of Government legislation, particularly when the case had occurred in their own town.