The Planners and the Planned

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 August 1946, Page 8

Th e Planners and the Planned

[TO THE EDITOR.] Sir, —It was reported in your issue of July 30, that Mr. Nash, recently returned from his latest trip abroad, said: “The British Commonwealth will be the most powerful agent, for the type of freedom we went to war fori”

From this it appears that Mr. Nash thinks there is more than one type of freedom, a dangerous slip, with a general election approaching, which may be contested, and will be decided, on the issue of freedom or regimentation.

Mr. Nash, an advocate of a Planned Economy, in his evidence as a private member of Parliament, before the Government Monetary Committee of 1934, was reported as saying, “We have got to fit in with a system of planned production,” and agreeing that, “the only alternative to anarchy is some order consciously planned.” He laid it down then that all the public’s surplus cash should be taken over from it by “a National Investment Board charged with directing the savings of the people into channels most beneficial to the Dominion.” As to who should decide the channels most beneficial to the Dominion, his opinion is not recorded. This would constitute one huge trust, with all activities in New Zealand directed by a few Planners. Mr. Laski, who appears to be the-spokes-man for the British Labour Government of which he is not a member, said some time ago, that “only in a planned world could there be security for the working man.” Like Mr. Nash, no doubt, he wants to be one of the Planners, not one of the planned multitude.

Mr. Nash/s regime, with power in their hands, have shown themselves many times more ruthless than any of their predecessors in office. Does Mr. Fraser, for instance, think the stand he took against the Military Service Act, 1916,. was really worth while, considered in the light of what his own party did less than 30 years later? If we give them another three years of office, would anyone be surprised if there is a compulsory deduction from wages “to direct the savings of the people into channels” decided by Mr. Nash? This ambition to direct the lives of the common people is not confined to socialists. International finance, sometimes referred to as “the Hidden* Hand,” has the same ultimate fate in store for mankind. “Rationalisation” first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928, but at the World Economic Conference in 1927 there had been talk of rational organisation of production and distribution by the bringing of the whole of an industry under intelligent direction and administration. A leader in this movement in Britain was Sir Alfred Mond, head of the great combine of Imperial Chemical Industries, who had brought the General Council of the Trades Union Congress to the view that rationalisation was a half-way house to nationalisation. Socialism and giant finance could co-operate to bring about the servile .state.

The organisation known as P.E.P. (Political Economic Plan) appears to be a later edition of a similar scheme. Mr. Israel Moses Sieff, director of a Chain store enterprise in England called Marks & Spencer (paying 40 per cent dividend in 1933) became chairman of P.E.P. in July, 1932, and has been credited with being the author of a pamphlet circulated (secretly at first) by the organisation, called “Freedom and Planning,” a lengthy document, apparently designed as an apology similar to what we might expect Mr. Nash to offer the electors for the destruction of their liberty, and representing it as a safeguard against something worse, the common excuse of all tyrants of' recent' years.

I have to thank you for allowing me so much space, but it is, after all, election year. There seems no chance of securing a surety from Mr. Nash’s colleagues against regimentation, and the hopes of the electors are turning in the direction of a truly national government, which would concern itself with the affairs of New Zealand and not try to link us with international networks or giant combines. We are said to be a people always first in progress, and perhaps we shall be first to break with the regimentation now apparent all over the world. Yours etc. FREEDOM SOON. Greymouth, August 1.