SOCIALISATION EXTENDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1937, Page 6

SOCIALISATION EXTENDS.

Trading in dairy produce, bacon and honey has already come under the control of the State, and producers of those commodities, in the language of a Labour Parliamentarian who visited Taranaki recently, have been placed on a salary earning basis. If the views of a Parliamentary committee prevail, as is almost certain, trading in fruit and vegetables is also to come under the beneficient care of the State as well as the production of those commodities. The ideals of State-controlled horticulture, as instanced by the committee which recommends it, are much the same as those indicated in regard to other primary products. The producer is to receive better value for his fruit or vegetables enabling him to pay higher wages and higher costs, the traders are to be preserved from cut-throat competition, and the consumer is to pay less. It is a pretty picture, but the housewife will take the promise of lowered prices with some reservations. It may be too early to judge fairly the previous efforts of the State towards "orderly production and marketing," but hitherto the dairy farmer, bee keeper and pig raiser are most conscious of an untoward rise in costs that shows an indication of Teaching further heights and makes their State-guaranteed "salary" considerably smaller than they had anticipated. At the other extreme of socialised trading is the consumer. He is finding butter and bacon considerably more expensive than it was before "orderly" methods obtained, and judging from the first essay in State control of horticulture the onion growers and dealers have not found the new methods open an easy way to prosperity, in spite of the fact that the consumer is to pay more for the "controlled" product. Established traders in fruit and vegetables are to surrender initiative and enterprise for protection from competition coupled with political control of profits and even of fresh enterprise. They also are to join the ranks of "salaried officials," and if the results lead to higher costs to the consumer it is the privilege of the public to pay for the economic cxperiments it has given politicians the opportunity of making.