The Gisborne Herald IN WHICH IS INCORPORATED "THE TIMES." GISBORNE, THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1949 SOCIALIST PLANNERS AT WORK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22916, 7 April 1949, Page 4

The Gisborne Herald IN WHICH IS INCORPORATED "THE TIMES." GISBORNE, THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1949 SOCIALIST PLANNERS AT WORK

for the annual conference of the New Zealand Labour Party next month again appear in formidable array. They range from nationalisation proposals for major industries and fish distribution to price reductions covering a wide field from racecourse refreshments to firewood charges. They are a mixture of the further application of socialist principles and profit margin squeeze, with glimpses here and there of the “something for nothing” philosophy which in recent years has been the subject of keen debate.

The discussion of the remits and the decisions of the conference will be followed particularly closely this year because of the forthcoming general election. No doubt some of the proposals will become election issues, and it is well that they should. Too much legislation in the past has been carried through without a clear, specific mandate from the electors. The last decade has witnessed a transformation in the social and economic life of New Zealanders. It. has been handed over to the politicians to a much greater extent than most people ever anticipated, including many who voted for Mr. Savage’s party in tbc 1935 elections.

Social reconstruction is a continuous process differing in its progress from Government to Government only in its pace. Society has been likened to an organism which can be dissected but cannot, be put together again. Once that organism has stopped functioning it has ceased for all time. Therefore, because social reconstruction, good or bad, is irrevocable it must be well thought out, cautiously introduced, slowly extended. This has not been the case in either New Zealand or Britain.

In these two countries haste has been the keynote; legislative enactments, it is felt, have often exceeded political commitments. The same weaknesses have been present—unnecessary restraints on individual liberty, growth of the bureaucracy, administrative waste, diminished incentive to produce because of high taxation. Trite and familiar as these words may be, they nevertheless describe conditions which are present for all to see. Until men and women are cast in a more altruistic mould, the fact remains that they will not work as hard for the community as they do for themselves; yet they are being steadily taken from their own resources and placed in the service of the State. The analogy in New Zealand is that of a patient being given repeated doses of medicine with the exhortation that it is good for him whether he likes it or not. One day he will steel himself to say that he has had enough, to refuse more at least for the present. Slow as most New Zealanders are to react, that day is drawing closer.