PUBLIC TRADING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16024, 16 September 1915, Page 9

PUBLIC TRADING.

DANGERS POINTED OUT.

UNFAIR COMPETITION [by TELEGRAPH.— PRESS ASSOCIATION".] Wellington-, Wednesday. " Those who predict i great increase of State enterprise after tlw close of the war would do well to consider the results of such an attempt by the West Australian and Now South Wales State Parliaments," remarked Mr. T. S. Weston, president of the New Ze>ihnd Employers' Federation, in his address. In West Australia, a State steamship, State meat shops, State sawmills and State implement works, were established and .'n New South Wales State brick works. One and all have proved failures. Referring to the losses of the Stat* coal mine, he said that State institution _ dH no 1 , pay the same taxation as the private institution, a fact now made prominent in the mines report. The same unfair competition with private employers was creeping into existence through the powers given to municipalities to trade. Local bodies did not pay lates or taxes and could bor-ow at low rates of interest. An addition il danger lay in the large increase in the number of public servants and the sensitiveness of councillors to the election vote 3of such employees. The result had shown itself by local bodies making agreements •with their employees irre--1 apective of the general body of employers.,