TOTALITARIAN TREND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25940, 5 September 1945, Page 4

TOTALITARIAN TREND

STIFLING POLICY OF SOCIALISM GOVERNMENT ATTACKED (F.0.P.R.) WELLINGTON. Sept. 4. State trading should be used only as a check to monopolies and to encourage new industries ana new markets, but State Socialism meant monopolies, said Mr K. J. Holyoake (Oppn., Pahiatua) speaking in the financial debate in the House of Representatives tonight. He added that the keynote of Socialistic legislation was monopoly The National Party stood for competition. Under its policy for socialisation ol the means of distribution the Government had exercised control of every wheel of transport, said Mr Holyoake. The Minister of Transport, Mr J. O’Brien, had established a virtual dictatorship. There was no appeal from his decisions. Immediately the Government took office it socialised the Reserve Bank and in 1938 it had secured monopoly control of the sterling exchange. Now it proposed compulsorily to acquire the privately-held shares of the Bank of New Zealand. All this was indicative of the extent to which the Government was creating a monopolist totalitarian State, Mr Holyoake added. He submitted that the proper function of the State was to check monopolies, encourage new industries and markets, and to leave economic enterprises to the spur of free competition and to co-operative organisations.