THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1949. IMPORTS AND POLICIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27240, 17 November 1949, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1949. IMPORTS AND POLICIES

Members of the Labour Party have conveniently forgotten many of their earlier opinions on import control, which has now become openly a. plank of the party’s policy. There is still a seeming reluctance to confess frankly that import control is maintained as an instrument of exchange control, and it is paraded chiefly as a device for the protection of New Zealand’s manufacturing industries. This effect of import control was stressed by both Mr Nordmeyer and Mr Hudson in their speeches on Tuesday night and among their uncritical audiences there appeared to be no one to ask why a policy which had earned 'such widespread execration could not be replaced by a simple adjustment of tariffs which would give essential industries all the protection they required. Had these speakers been wholly frank they would have admitted that import control has now become an essential factor in the Labour Party’s plans for the eventual nationalisation of all the means qf production, distribution and exchange. The Left Wing element of the party, when the regulations were introduced, was at least honest enough to confess them as such.

The import selection and control regulations were promulgated apologetically by Mr Nash in 1938, not as part of his Government’s policy but as a measure of desperation to conserve the country’s overseas funds, which had fallen to alarmingly low proportions. He promised the country that the restrictions would be of a temporary nature, and in view of the fact that the regulations were soon afterwards declared invalid his diffidence was understandable. Subsequently he went to London in order to arrange financial accommodation to maintain the country’s solvency, and it is not without interest to recall that he admitted to the London Chamber of Commerce that the regulations were a breach of the Ottawa Agreement, but had been made necessary by the financial difficulties with which New Zealand was confronted. But back in New Zealand members of the Parliamentary Labour Party were discovering the usefulness of the import control regulations as an instrument of Socialist policy, and were becoming increasingly evasive when questioned on the length of time that the restrictions might be expected to operate. Mr Nash, too, has been convinced, and now subscribes to a policy of continued import control as “essential for the future welfare of New Zealand in-, dustry.” But he has yet to explain how he reconciles this outlook with his earlier promises, or with the view he expressed that import control was a breach of the contract drawn up between the nations of the Commonwealth.