LAND SALES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 73, Issue 6284, 23 September 1946, Page 5

LAND SALES

Sir, —I should have thought that the complete failure of the Land Sales Act is conclusive evidence of its stupidity. As a market of great scarcity develops, controls defeat themselves and a black market arises. The effect of increased penalties is merely to almost restrict land transactions in houses to the exchange of houses, which means that only those at present owning houses are buyers and the person without a house cannot purchase. The most effective method of restricting production of anything is price fixation and controls and so all commodities become progressively shorter in supply. Despite the attempt in Britain to hold prices, they have probably risen more than in America, and are still rising. The Maloney Report on Russia proves

that State control reduced the standard of living to the lowest in the world, With the greatest scarcity of things the people need. Hitler and Mussolini, by their State control, lowered the standard of living and ruined the export trade of their coun tries. Mr Nash can prattle about holding prices and preventing inflation, but he is caught in a trap of his own making, for his method prevents the expansion of production, and there can be only one end to all—inflation, scarcity, and black-market prices.—l am, etc., ONLOOKER.