STATE CONTROL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25302, 12 August 1943, Page 4

STATE CONTROL

COSTLY AM) TYRANMCAL EFFECT ON WAGE-EARNER “ The forces striving lor more State control are voluble and insistent, if they are not strong in logic, and on account of the war these forces are entrenched In.forward positions,” said Mr C. E. Begg, the retiring president, in his address at the annual meeting of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce last night; “If we are not vigilant,” he-said, “before private enterprise again comes into its own we may have to j endure long periods of State control with its resultant losses, all its inefficiency and ill-effect on the economy of our land, and on the welfare of everyone in this country. “Come back to private enterprise we must,” Mr Begg said. “Let us use our brains, and see that the fantastic proposition of State control is completely discredited by cold logic. Do not let us drift through ignorancq and apathy , into State control, and return to private enterprise only when our fingers have been badly burnt, and our national losses piled up to a serious total. Position of Workers “One of the menaces that everyone in this country has to face in the future is the view of many wage earners, founded on complete ignorance, that increased State ownership and control will mean increased prosperity and higher wages. Actually the ultimate result will be exactly the opposite. State control will decrease and not increase production, and will increase substantially the number of nonproducing drones in the community,' to the detriment of all, but mostly to the detriment of the wage earner, who will be taxed to keep these State employees. " Before the war,” he continued, ” most workers had some choice in regard to whether they would work for the Stats or for a private employer, but if we have much more State control the wage earner will have no option but to work for the State, and to work on terms laid down by the State. State control carried to extreme will spell slavery for wage earners. The workers will always find it easier to negotiate with private employers than with the State for fair and friendly working conditions and wages.. Blight on Country’s Economy

“State control in my opinion is costly to operate, inefficient in many ways, and would in normal times be a blight on the economy of New Zealand. If this is true, why has State control any supporters anywhere, especially amongst the wage earners, who will eventually suffer most from its operation? In its ultimate application it is the complete opposite of freedom for the individual, for widen, freedom the British Empire and tne United Nations are fighting this war, and have fought many wars in the past. Our present freedom has been obtained at the cost of bloodshed and tribulation. Freedom for the individual, fredom from want, freedom of action, of enterprise, of religion, of speech—these are now our birthrights. We have attained them after centuries of serfdom, slavery, and stultifying restrictions.” Declaring State control to be costl>, tyrannical, and slothful, Mr Begg said the chamber must organise to fight it, not for selfish reasons, but in the interests of New Zealand. Many good people favoured State control, because they did not understand the way it'blocked enterprise, and handicapped and impoverished the country. They must educate these people by hard facts, and fight all organisations that wanted to increase State control.