PRICES COMMENTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 November 1927, Page 2

PRICES COMMENTS.

The question whether the railways shall be allowed to undertake road transport is of vital concern to- the general public. The warfare and Hie waste which the present competition eutnils must be a dead loss in the long run H the community, and this will continue until some economic basis of co-operation is found. In New Zealand every citizen has a vital interest in the problem for the State has £50,000.000 invested in its railways, and unless these are adequately supported or can bo made to pay by the initiation of road services to supplement the railway revenue and incidentally drive competitors from the field the taxpayer will have to foot the bill.—“ Poverty Bay Herald.”

New Zealand lias, happily, a loss difficult problem to face than some of the Old World countries, and if goodwill and the spirit of justice and reasonableness are brought to bear on the economic position hy all parties, wo are sure that great results will follow. The Chambers of Commerce Conference has made a valuable contribution to the question of amending the Arbitration Court, ancl it is to he hoped that the Government will give careful thought to the Conference resolutions, which appear to us to he far 1 tetter than the amendments contained in the Bill which is to go before the committee. We should like to see constructive proposals made hy the Labour Party, which would he far more helpful than the wild cry that the amendments are only an attack on wages.—'Wanganui “Herald.”

Great Britain has allowed the thin end of the wedge of trade restriction to lie inserted, and if this policy is developed, concurrently with a similar policy in the Dominions, so that- the latter cannot fill the gap in Britain’s market, caused by the loss of foreign markets, the result will he a gradual diminution, not only of international, hut also of inter-imperial trade, and the Empire, instead of becoming a more powerful unit, will rather tend towards disintegration. If the selfcontainment which is held up hy some politicians and manufacturers as an ideal to lie striven for were to come about, the Empire would be split up into economic units, and as a natural consequence into political and social units, with little or nothing to hind them together. Inter-Imperial Treetrade. on the other hand, would eventually load to other countries seeking to join the circle, and so hrTlig about greater international unity, and be the greatest possible guarantee of international peace.—“Taranaki Herald.”

The Public Works Department ought not to be anything more than a Department of engineering and construction. It is not fitted to have anything to do with development policy, and five decades of use have abundantly proved that this is also true of any Government. So long as the politicians have a hand in the settlement of development policy, so long the borrow-

ed millions will lie laid out. The problem is to get rid of the pushing ancl shoving of competitors for a “fair share” of the millions, and to reduce the Public Works Departmentto its proper status, and this problem can lie solved only by the appointmentof a permanent Development Board, independent of everybody except Parliament. and uninfluenced hy any consideration except the economic requirements of the Dominion.—Christchurch “Press.’’