IN PARLIAMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 6, 4 December 1937, Page 10

IN PARLIAMENT

JOTTINGS FROM THE HOUSE. STATE OR THE PEOPLE. “This Bill may be regarded as a milestone along the Communistic road,” said Hon. J. G. Uobbe (Opposition, Oroua), when speaking in the second reading debate on the Primary Products Marketing Amendment Bill in the House yesterda.y morning- Mr Cobbe claimed that the Bill raised the issue of whether, the people owned the State or the State owned the people, and said that in the Bill Parliament was imposing a form of dictatorship such as did not exist in any other country in the Empire. TRADE INTERFERENCE. “The entire Bill represents an unwarranted interference with the normal trade of the country,” declared Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates. “It cuts right across the path of private trading and ignores the fact that this country was raised to its present state of prosperity by individual effort. The scheme has been borrowed direct from Communist Russia, and has no relation to the ideals and principles of British people. Bureaucracy will again run wild, and producers, distributors and consumers will all be at its. mercy. As I see it, this Bill will wipe out in a very short time practically all the small shopkeepers of this country, who will be powerless to stand up against the onrushing steamroller of State enterprise.” A NEW ERA. . “Unless producers get together and co-operate on a group basis which transcends the individualism advocated by the Opposition, the time comes when a Government has to bring about co-operation by legislative action,’ said Mr B. Roberts. “It is one thing to pass legislation ; another to administer it sympathetically. This legislation marks a new era in the development of the primary industries, which require some master hand such as the State to regulate and control them.” THREE DICTATORS. “Three Ministers of the Crown are already dictators in their own sphere.” said Mr C. -A. Wilkinson. “We have the Minister of 'lndustries and Commerce (Hon. D. G. Sullivan) controlling business, regulating and dictating prices, and in a position where he can call on any man in business to produce his books and accounts. He can order any business man to reduce his prices at any time. We have the Minister of Transport (Hon. R. Semple), who can also dictate and direct the fixation of fares and freights. In fact, I am sure the Government is gradually assuming the power of life and death, almost, over the people of this country. ‘We have the Minister of Marketing (Hon. W. Nash), as the greatest dictator of them all. He has taken possession of probably half of the total produce of the country, and can do precisely >what he will with it. If that is not dictatorship and priceqontrol in every way I don’t understand the meaning of the word.” MIDDLEMEN’S SERVICES.

“I think the middlemen have rendered a useful service, and that complaints about profiteering are exaggerated,” said Mr H. M. Rushworth. “Investigations have generally shown that charges for the handling of produce are reasonable.”