For the War Period and After

Southland Times, Issue 23953, 20 October 1939, Page 6

For the War Period and After

A LTHOUGH the Dominion is at -t*- war, organizations of farmers and business men are finding it impossible to remain silent while the Government uses the emergency to strengthen its Authoritarian control of industry and commerce. As we have said already, no one will grudge the Government taking whatever powers are genuinely necessary for the successful prosecution fit the Dominion’s war effort; but the powers taken in the Marketing Amendment Act particularly go far beyond the necessities of war. They are simply a fulfilment of Labour policy—Mr Nash admitted as much; and, to the Government’s discredit, they wgre secured in circumstances which made effective opposition impossible, either in the House or in the country. During the debate on the Bill Mr Nash and Mr Fraser said something about reviewing the effects of the legislation after the war. But the test of the Government’s sincerity came when the Leader of the Opposition moved an amendment to this effect. The amendment was rejected. The Government was prepared to make a promise—promises have not greatly worried it at any time. It was not prepared to have the promise set down in the Statute Book. The Marketing Amendment Act, like the Reserve Bank Amendment Act, is a measure of socialist policy intended to be fully, though gradually, enforced, and to stand for all time, war or no war.

“Gradually and Quietly”

The Minister of Marketing no doubt had this legislation in mind when he told members of the Public Service Association on Tuesday that “there were many things done by private enterprise today that inevitably must be done, as the years passed, by the Public Service” and that it “would gradually and quietly displace some of the things done by other people.” Apart from the indication they give of Labour’s longterm policy, these words are worth study as an example of the Government’s foolishly partisan behaviour at a time when the unity and co-operation of all classes of the people should be its first concern. The protest made yesterday by a deputation of Auckland business men, described as representative of all sections of the business community and as the largest ever received by the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, was directed against the socialization of industry generally — against the “restrictions, interferences, regimentation and control to which each and all of us have been subjected.” Gatherings of farmers in Otago and in the Waikato have attacked the Marketing Amendment Act. A meeting of 1500 farmers at Morrinsville yesterday demanded that the Act should be amended. The Otago farmers expressed their readiness to contribute a full share to the national effort and accepted the present necessity of the wool commandeer; they objected, however, to the permanent socialization of their industry and decided to ask for an assurance that Government control would be restricted to the war period. It is most unfortunate that there should be even the faintest signs of political strife in the Dominion at the present time. But full collaboration is obviously impossible if the Government persists in using the war emergency to further its own political ends.