STATE MARKETING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20732, 20 May 1937, Page 6

STATE MARKETING

SUPPLY AND DEMAND BEING IGNORED The tendency of the Government to take over the production and marketing of the Dominion’s primary produce was criticised by the retiring president, Mr J. M. Jenkins, in an address which he delivered to the annual meeting of the South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce last night. ' Mr Jenkins maintained that the price ot primary produce should be determined by the operation of the law of supply and demand to a greater extent than was the case at present. In New Zealand that fundamental law was being ignored and prices were being fixed by the State. The aim appeared to Indicate State ownership and control. “I submit that the State’s function Is essentially to govern and administer, not to enter into competitive business with private enterprise,” he said. “Would New Zealand have been colonised and developed if it had had to depend on any Government?” The answer must be that the colonisation and development of the country was due entirely to the enterprise of the old pioneers, and it was to be regretted that this spirit of enterprise was being prejudiced and Interfered with to no small extent. It appeared to him that, if the present policy of price fixation by the State and control of marketing was carried td its logical conclusion, those qualities which characterised the early pioneers were going to be destroyed, and if that day came New Zealanders could be relegated to the realm of “mere machines.”