The Northern Advocate Daily “Northland First?" MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1937. GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

Northern Advocate, 29 November 1937, Page 6

The Northern Advocate Daily “Northland First?"

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1937. GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper.

The “Evening Post,” Wellington, in common with a large section of public opinion in New Zealand, is evincing concern at the extent to which the Government is encroaching upon private ownership or control of business. In an editorial in its issue of last Friday, the “Post” said that without making a complete catalogue of all the Government’s ventures and inquiring into their possible consequences, a few instances may he given that have! been brought under the notice of j the public during the past week. These include the establishment of an Internal Marketing Department, the purchase of road motor transport businesses, and the housing enterprise, side by side with the control of the use by other people of their property. All these ventures involve heavy expenditure of public funds, or the use of public credit. What-

ever the cost may be, It is certainly time, in the opinion of the “Post,” that a reckoning should be made of both costs and benefits. With regard to the internal marketing scheme,' 1o .begin with, it is asked what has been achieved that could not have been done by the Marketing Department which is managing the export of dairy producer This question may well be asked, for it is impossible to understand, outside of there being a desire to make a Socialistic experiment, why the Government should have considered it necessary to interfere with the conduct of a class of business about which there had been no valid cause for complaint, and which, if it really needed any regulation, could have been controlled by the organisation already in existence. Though Ministers have stated that the venture is proving profitable to the State, no convincing proof of that contention has so far been adduced. In the view of the “Post,” the Government’s attitude towards the transport business raises oven more momentous issues. Though statements by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport infer that complete transport nationalisation is only a means to achieve co-ordination where it is found otherwise unattainable, the “Post” is not convinced that big State purchases arc necessary. Moreover, it says, State purchases may not be the end. “'When the State owns the railways and the motor transport, it may find businesses using their own trucks, and it may then (as it has taken power to do) prevent them competing with the State concerns. The protection of a huge State investment will be the excuse. But that will moan that there is no competitive check upon the efficiency and cost of the State transport. Big as the bill may be, trade and industry will have to pay it.” This, we think, is a real danger of which sight should not be lost. So far ns the Government’s housing schemes are concerned, the “Post” believes that there is a call for closer analysis than has yet been made of costs and returns. Houses arc being built in large numbers, it is true, and it is probable that the mass methods adopted have resulted in economy, but private building has been slowed down, and there is every indication that the housing shortage is practically as severe as it was. “In regard to housing, therefore, as well as in internal marketing and transport, the Government should is achieving its purpose, or whether the discouragement of private enterprise is not adding to public burdens without giving adequate compensating public benefits.”