TRADE INTERESTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23181, 29 October 1938, Page 14

TRADE INTERESTS

COMMERCE CHAMBERS * WORK OF THE EXECUTIVE YEAR'S ACTIVITIES REVIEWED "Political matters involve commercial interests so closely these days that it becomes impossible for the executive to avoid being involved in political questions if it is to carry out the charge laid upon it,'' states the annual report of the executive of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand, to be presented at the conference which will be held in Auckland next Thursday and Friday. "The executive has been meticulous in all its work in avoiding any semblance of participation in party politics, although having to resist charges that its policy was deliberately in the other direction, merely because at times it exercised its legitimate right to voice reasonable criticism."

The largest single subject with which the executive was concerned during the year was the social security plan of the Government, the report continues. Tt was perceived by the Associated Chambers a year before the appearance of the bill itself that it would have far-reaching effects on the whole community.

The report outlines the efforts of the executive to obtain explicit fundamental information about the bill and states that the bill was subsequently passed without any clear or adequate statement having been made by 4heGovernment as to the extent of the expenditure to which the country was committed beyond the first year of operation of the scheme. The campaign which was urged by the 1936 conference of educating the public by means of planned publicity material, on undesirable Governmental policies and trends, was continued by the executive.