The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING “LUCEO NON URO” SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1937. An Indictment Of Socialist Policy

Southland Times, Issue 23308, 18 September 1937, Page 6

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING “LUCEO NON URO” SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1937. An Indictment Of Socialist Policy

The eight points of criticism included in the text of the noconfidence amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition (the Hon. Adam Hamilton) on Thursday night make a concise statement of the case against the Government. Some of these points are different phases of a single problem; most of them interlock, or are complementary with others; and in every case they illustrate the inevitable outcome, in trade, industry and society, of the Government’s policy. The key to this policy is to be found. in the first point, which refers plainly to a “persistent encroachment upon the rights of private ownership and .... bureaucratic methods of

control in industry. . . .” It is this, more than anything else, which has alarmed all reasonable and responsible members of the community. Bureaucracy is a world-wide tendency; it is only fair (o admit that we had it in New Zealand before the Labour Government came into office; and no doubt it will remain under future Governments. But it is a tendency which should meet with determined opposition from the free people of a democracy whenever it seems to move beyond reasonable limits. Government methods lead to extravagance and mismanagement in industry, .to an excessive paternalism which gradually saps the energy and initiative of those who, in increasing numbers, are expected to abstain from responsibility, and to a regimentation which leads to uniformity, mediocrity, and an ultimate stagnation in the productive channels of the country.

This is that “socialist bogy” to which Mr J. Thorn referred while opening the Address-in-Reply debate. “Personally,” said Mr Thorn, “I want a root and branch change in the present economic system to a system of industry and trade owned cooperatively and organized solely for the use of, and benefit of, all people.” If he had left it at that we could have accepted these words as a statement of personal opinion. But he went on to say that “that is the aim of the Labour Party and this Government.” And then, with that sublime disregard for the meanings of words which set.ms to be cultivated by members of the Labour Party from Mr Savage downwards, he •added an afterthought: “However, we are democrats. We believe in constitutional government and in education and persuasion.” Presumably this means that Mr Thorn favours the use of democratic methods to bring about the extinction of democracy. He referred plainly to “a system of industry and trade owned cooperatively”, which means simply a system owned by the Government. If there is any comfort in his words —in so far as they express the intentions of his party—it is merely because we are to be “educated” and “persuaded” to adopt that enlightened view of the future which members of the Government, in their fatal ignorance of—or indifference to —economic realities, now enjoy in their enviable omniscience. But we have already been provided with clues to the Government conception of education and persuasion. To be educated is to have the bland assurances of Mr Savage offered to us through the radio, while no discordant note of criticism follows; or to have the anomalies of the guaranteed price explained away by Mr Nash without hearing the adverse opinions of a spokesman for the Farmers’ Union. Further examples of Government education have been provided by Mr Semple, who spoke of certain Justices of the Peace in what Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M., later described as “language consistent only with a positive right to discipline Justices whose judicial decisions differ from what the Minister thinks they should be.” It is quite true that Mr Semple’s road safety campaign is valuable and necessary; but the principle at stake is the safeguarding of a law which must remain beyond the control of Ministers who, if a precedent for interference is established, might make use of it in causes which are sectional rather than national. There should be no need to describe the numerous instances of Government “persuasion” which have laid a network of restrictive regulations on industry and trade. Labour’s industrial and transport enactments have each placed large powers in the hands of a single Minister, and there is no appeal against his final decision. Soon there will be a National Sports Council. We have been assured that the motives of those responsible for this council are entirely benevolent: there is to be no regimentation of sport. But the fact remains that a further machinery of control is being added to a system already pressing heavily on individual freedom. The second point of criticism laid down in the amendment refers to the failure of the Gov-

ernnient “to honour its election pledge to absorb all able-bodied workers into employment. On the contrary, its policy, which has resulted in higher internal costs, has seriously retarded the process of absorbing the unemployed into industry.” This could be described as a reference to the central weakness of the Government’s policy, because the failure to reduce the number of unemployed to figures relatively comparable with those of other countries is the plainest evidence of the failure to place the country’s industry in a position to reabsorb workers now on sustenance. In crippling the young industries of New Zealand with higher costs the Government has left them unarmed against the next fall in the nation’s total income. Private enterprise has been discouraged and in some cases —-as in road transport—taken over by the State. Taxation remains high at a time when Australian States, one after another, have been able to make welcome reductions. The number of Government employees is steadily increasing; if the dreams of Mr Thorn and his friends are realized this increase will continue and accelerate. We have seen in Europe what happens to peoples that are governed by authoritarian States; and although Mr Savage would insist that his Government is concerned only with the happiness and prosperity of the people it is inescapably true that paternalism is merely the reverse side of the medal: its transition to authoritarianism ' can be imperceptible but definite. This is the future which the Labour Government is preparing for New Zealand. It may be acceptable to its followers because it promises at least a temporary enjoyment of the conditions which the demagogues have taught them to consider desirable. But it can never be acceptable to those other - members of the community who believe that the qualities needed for individual enterprise and advancement are also the qualities which give sinew and self-reliance to a young nation.