"DOWN AND OUT"

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19139, 7 October 1936, Page 5

"DOWN AND OUT"

THE SMALL INDUSTRIALIST EFFECT OF NEW BILL INDEPENDENT’S OPINION CREATION OF COMBINES (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this (lay. Quoting notable examples of savings through the official regulation of road transport, Mr. 11. M. Christie (Lab., Waipawa) employed these illustrations as arguments for the proper organisation of industry, but Mr. R. A. Wright (Ind., Wellington Suburbs) put before the House of Representatives last night an entirely different view of the Industrial Efficiency Bill.

He aroused instant interruption when he opened with a declaration that it was proposing to organise rings and combines to keep up prices, •and.he wandered what the Minister of Lands' WOUld'say after he'had' ina'de the welkin’ ring with his condemnation of‘these evils. The philosophy of. the Liberals, he reminded Government members, was always for liberty to buy in the cheapest, market ,and sell wherever one pleased.

The Hon. D. G. Sullivan: Your colleagues say we are going to create a soviet, not a capitalistic combine.

Mr. Wright: The Minister is not correct in calling them my colleagues. He is doing the Opposition a very grave injustice. (Laughter). COMBINE .AG AINST PUBLIC Mr. Wright added that if the measure worked at all it would force manufacturers into a sort of combine against the general public under the guise of rationalisation and efficiency, but with all their reduced costs there was nothing to prevent these people charging the same prices and exploiting the public, and if there was any attempt to control prices grave difficulty would be encountered by the Industries Bureau. It was an attempt to control secondary production, and the only way this could be done was the way they followed in Russia. The Hon. R. Semple: Would you infer that creating a private combine is socialism? Mr. Wright replied that although the bill set out to bring every individual into a combination,*the individual character of firms was. still, there. Edward Bellamy had said that in future rings and combines would control all industry, and finally they would be narrowed down to a few ami the State would step in and take the lot. This bill was working to that end. No small man could start in business. Henry* Ford would have been barred, because on the bureau committee would be two men in the industry concerned, and when a new man wanted to start they would suggets that he had no capital, there was no room for him, or he was inefficient. The day of the small man was gone. He was down and out, emphatically concluded the Independent member. VALUE OF REGULATION LESSON FROM TRANSPORT EFFICIENT ORGANISATION (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Examples taken from the organisation of the transport industry in his own locality were quoted in the House of Representatives last night by Mr. 11. M. Christie (Lab., Waipawa) in support of the measure under discussion providing for the efficient organisation of New Zealand industries. The member stated that he knew of an instance where a small township had three roads radiating from it, one carrier providing transport with a weekly service involving a mileage of 312. He was doing reasonably well when a second man came on the road. Then a third came, and finally there were five lorries doing weekly runs of 2008 miles, unnecessarily wearing out roads, and nobody making a living. The licensing authority in this case compelled three of the carriers concerned to reduce the service to a bi-weekly one, and run alternately, with the result that instead of a condition of insolvency all were, within 12 months, paying their way, though certainly not making big profits. Similar control on the NapierOisborne road route had effected an improvement from a competitive proposition involving an annual transport mileage of 400,000 on 152 miles of road. The result had been an enormous saving on road maintenance and an improvement of the operators’ position.

He suggested that no member of the Opposition would criticise the regulation of this traffic, and there were similar conditions in industry where business was ruined by excessive competition. He did not imagine that the Minister wished unnecessarily to interfere, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that the business position also required regulation.