A Plan for N.Z.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 471, 4 June 1932, Page 8

A Plan for N.Z.

Organisation Needed.

Production, Distribution, and Exchange. (Written for the “ Star,” by E.J. HOWARD, M.P.) MAN who fears is weak. Bad temper is a sign of fear. Unfortunately, we have a number of citizens, decent fellows in many ways, who, like Plato’s caveman, only see the shadows because they are sitting with their backs to the light. Little personal vanities hold ' them up and prevent them from looking at the real thing. They have made up their minds, and their minds are all that matter to them. It is unfortunate that these highly respected but set citizens get on to local bodies, and woe betide the individual who tries to introduce a fresh thought. Not only on local bodies, but in the public service we have the same kind of fault exemplified. Like the measles, it becomes epidemic at times and runs through the whole family of citizens. “Mr Clennam, will you do me the favour to look at this man? His name is Doyce, Daniel Doyce. \ ou wouldn t suppose this man to be a notorious rascal, would you?” “I certainly should not . . “ You wouldn’t suppose him to be a public offender, would you? .... But he has been ingenious and he has been trying to turn his ingenuity to his country’s service, and that makes him a public offender directly, sir.” Charles Dickens knew hi? psychology and in Little Dorrit we get a glimpse into the circumlocution office that has branches in every part of the British Empire. The Coal Industry. Take one or two items. Our coal, for instance. No matter where that coal is in New Zealand it belongs to the New Zealand people. If a foreign nation was to send ships here with crews ready to land and dig the coal and to take it away for their own use, we would all take up arms to defend our property. But if any group of individuals from within our own shores get hold of that coal we permit them to do almost as they like. In the sacred name of private property they can pick the eyes out of the mines and leave to cave in what they cannot make an immediate profit from. If New Zealand •was really interested in her own affairs she would demand organisation to such an extent that she would know what coal she required and supply her own needs annually. Let private enterprise do the job if we worship that system but let it be done under organisation. Demand creates the supply. Consumption should be the end of production, but the production should be the place where organisation must commence. A second case is fish supply. Who ever heard of fish farms? And yet! And yet why not? In 1925 nineteen and threequarter million hundredweights of fish were landed in England which represented a value of nearly £20,000,000. Nearly 70,000 men and boys are engaged in the fisheries of Great Britain. For years and years fishing was a haphazard calling. Anyone could buy a boat and go to sea and fish. Then when war threatened and the question of food had to be considered learned men began to study the psychology and biology of the humble cockle. All the fish off Great Britain’s shores were studied, and, to a certain extent, protected. Some day New Zealand will wake up to the fact that under organisation we have a valuable asset swimming around our shores, but it must receive some protection and care. Must be Studied. It is a plan we want. A plan of production, distribution and exchange. There now, I have done it. That cat has been trying to get out of the bag for months. But, after all, disease must be studied. Disease! The very word explains itself. Disease is simply disorganisation. Organisation is ease. Of course cancer is an organisation, but an organisation of disease. • If we set to work to study the cause we could find a cure. If our doctors sat down and waited for an Ottawa Conference to find a cure for cancer we shouldn't think much of otir doctors. Our economic ills must be studied from our own backyard first and then when we meet in conference we can help each other. We must get the New Zealand habit. Wouldn’t the Empire be proud of us if we were self-supporting and able to lend a hand to the other members of the family? And why not? We have as clever men in this country as Jim Thomas and yet hardly a day passes but what we read something about what that gentleman said.

The keynote then is organisation. And organisation only means order of doing things. Here we have a million and a half people living on some islands in the South Pacific. They want certain things, and we know almost to a decimal fraction what those things are. We know within a small quantity the amount of things they require. So*»we prepare our organisation; so many people, so many goods required. The land now must be studied because we must produce those things from the land. But we find we can grow more mutton than we require for these people so we agree to exchange our mutton with other countries for things they can produce better or faster than we can produce them. But if all the people on these islands produce mutton we shall become poor because mutton would become a glut and unexchangeable. We must organise the supply; the demand will look after itself. Russia set out to do that job for herself. She took an economic survey of her country. They aim to reach an output of 220,000 million tons of coal by 1937 and 22.000 million tons of pig iron and 130,000 million tons of grain by the same date. We should not become afraid. We should applaud their efforts. We should send them cheer thoughts. They are not producing to flood our markets; they are aiming to feed, clothe and shelter their 150,000,000 people. Of course, we don’t like their form of political organisation. But don’t let us fool ourselves. Whilst condemning some other system let us know our own if we have one.

Ours isn’t a system; it’s a conglomeration. New Zealand has all the laws she requires for the next ten years. But laws are only words written into books. Without the will to do laws will do nothing. Laws must have the goodwill of good people behind them before they can be enforced. All we lack in New Zealand is the organisation of goodwill. The will to do good is there; it only wants organising. Can we start to do that?