BOARD OF TRADE ACT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20925, 15 July 1931, Page 7

BOARD OF TRADE ACT.

REPEAL 0f : MEASURE URGED. TWO- SETS OF REGULATIONS, INTOLERABLE RESTRICTIONS. A statement has been issued by the Associated Chambers of Commerce recalling promises by successive; Governments that the Board of Trade Act, 1919, and the supplementary measure of 1923 would be repealed. It explains that "under these Acts, the Minister of Industries and Commerce is empowered in many and various ways to harass and persecute competent, honest and law-abiding citizens of almost any and every calling." The Associated Chambers of Commerce and other commercial bodies have made repeated efforts to have these iniquitous Acts removed from the Statute Book. "The last Reform Government, elected on the slogan 'Less Government in Business/ promised repeal of the objectionable portions of the Act," the statement continues.: "It is understood that legislation to give effect to this promise was prepared, but it was never, brought before Parliament. The United Government owed its election in part to its pre-election promises to remove restrictions from private enterprise, and its Leader, the late Sir Joseph Ward, categorically promised repeal of the Board of Trade Acts in the 1929 session of Parliament., In June, 1930, Mr. Forbes received representations on the subject * very sympathetically. , The Minister of Industries and Commerce, Hon. P. A. de la Perrelle, promised the Associated Chambers of Commerce, at its annual conference last October, that at the next regular session of Parliament these measures would be dealt with in a manner that would be acceptable to the commercial community. The time is now ripe for fulfilment of this promise. "When repeal of these Acts has. been under discussion with Ministers of the Crown it has been suggested that the Acts could not be repealed in toto because of the continued necessity of certain regulations. Careful investigation leads the Associated Chambers of Commerce to believe that the only regulations under these Acts that are to-day in any sense 'live' are (1) regulations of January, 1925, regarding offerings of wool by auction, and (2) regulations of various dates dealing with the gas industry. "The wool regulations, if they ever were necessary, are no longer so, and if the Board of Trade Acts were repealed, the offerings of wool at auction would continue to be regulated as at present. The gas regulations have no right' or reason to exist, as regulations by Order-.in-Council, at all. If the gas industry requires regulations, that should be effected by separate legislative enactment and not by a general Act. Legislation by Ord< f r-in-Council bids fair to become as acute a public nuisance as even the Commercial Trusts Act or the Board of Trade Act. "The Associated Chambers of Commerce asks the present Government to honour its pledges to remove restrictions on private enterprise by completely removing from the Statute Book these intolerable Acts which now have no justification for continued existence."