“SOCIAL QUACKS.”

Taranaki Daily News, 19 June 1925, Page 8

“SOCIAL QUACKS.”

REMEDYING THE WORLD. TIME FOR A HALT. A suggestion that the time had arrived for the commercial world to insist on the cobbler sticking to his last instead of trying to remedy fancied evils of the world by a multiplicity of controls and regulations was made by Mr. Gordon Fraser (president) at the annual meeting of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce last night. “Social quacks” Mr. Fraser called the proposers of sovereign remedies for the ills of the world. They were found, he said, on dairy factories directorates, in the -factories, in the harvest fields, ou the wharf, in Parliament heading deputations for the protection of some dead or dying industry, and perhaps even in the Cabinet itself. They reminded him of the old patent medicine vendors at street corners with a pill for every ill. They were continually calling on the people to come and be tied up so that they might be operated on even fur troubles that the people were not aware were afflicting them. “The danger,” Mr. Fraser continued, “is that these ‘social quacks’ are honest iu their belief that they have discovered the remedy for most of our troubles. Tbe patient must rebel. Our call must be for them to get back to the jobs they understand and let us have a spell for the laws of nature to operate.” He added that men in the commercial world were commonly derided as 'being middleimcn. They were middlemen, and they were doing a service, and ni&ment they _ failed t-g do that service they would get out. They would have to.