THE H.B. TRIBUNE THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1936 INDUSTRIES ENCOURAGED?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 111, 23 April 1936, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1936 INDUSTRIES ENCOURAGED?

The legislative measures which our new Government is introducing, ostensibly in fulfilment of election promises, can scarcely but give some cause for hard thinking to those outside, the recognised ranks of political Labour who assisted it into office. Each successive Bill that is brought down shows that the Government is determined to interpret those promises in its own way and to regard their acceptance by the electors as conferring upon it the widest possible licence—“mandate ’ ’ it will probably be called—to do just as best pleases itself. In this, of course, those electors are merely going to get what, by the casting of their votes, they agreed to take. There are probably, however, a good few among them who must feel at least the commencement of misgiving as to both the immediate and the eventual results of the hasty application In their entirety of the principles for which the Labour Party stands. Even those who are in general agreement with those principles will feel that they would have a much better chance of working out to permanent acceptance were they to be brought more gradually into operation. As things are, the rapidity with which the Government is setting about effecting the revolution it has in view must necessarily occasion some apprehension among those who had in mind a steady and firmly based development and expansion of the industrial and commercial life of the community as a whole. There can scarcely be many outside the ranks of Labour itself who will not recognise in the measures the Government is putting through a serious threat to everything in the way of private initiative and enterprise. There would appear to be a complete forgetfulness that even with regard to industries, businesses and services already fairly well established there is for most of them a long leeway to be made up before they can be said to be anywhere like back to the position they held before the worldwide depression overtook us. How they are going to maintain themselves under the extra burdens that are now being imposed upon them does not seem to enter into the theories upon - which Labour policy is based. Instead of the encouragement they were led to expect, it would seem much more likely that many of them will break down under the extra loads they are to be asked to carry.

Nor is it as if the end of these burdens was yet in sight, for the Prime Minister himself is responsible for saying that the process that is now being begun will continue indefinitely. In the face of this there can he hut little hope

of private industries and services organising for a future with respect to which there is so much of uncertainty. The indications indeed are that as soon as they begin to show their heads above water they will be pushed down again.. All this does not seem at all calcuclated to assist towards any lasting solution of the problem of unemployment, which admittedly depends on the steady and permanent absorption of the now workless into gainful lines of industrial and commercial activity. That purpose is certainly not to be served by keeping those who are to. provide the work in a state of constant fear as to what next may happen to them. In some respects the Government insists upon the need for stability, while in others it indicates a policy of continual change. The Government is making great play with the theory of increased spending power among the mass of our own little community, a consummation which all would doubtless like to see achieved. It does not, however, seem to be taken into consideration that the prosperity of this country depends largely, if not mainly, upon the spending power of those oversea who are the chief consumers of our products. It is essential, therefore, to keep the prices of those products within their means to pay for them. On the other hand, those prices will have to be sufficient to cover the cost of production, unless under the Government’s scheme of guaranteed prices the taxpayers of this country are to be called upo to make up the difference. That, however, affects only our rural industries, which in the aggregate provide only a moderate share of the employment required. It is with respect to other industries and services that the actions of the Government have to be most seriously considered and only those engaged or contemplating engagement in them can judge as to how far they are likely to be promoted or discouraged by the possibilities that lie in the lap of the Government’s legislation and intimations as so far disclosed.