CHECK TO TRADE

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 70, 2 March 1938, Page 3

CHECK TO TRADE

STATE LEGISLATION NO BENEFIT TO WORKERS. That the present wave of prosperity in the Dominion was due to higher prices for primary produce and not to the legislation of tho Labor Government, which had actually restricted the rights of the business community while giving- a false prosperity to the worker, was the opinion expressed by Mr-W. R. Fee, president of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, in his presidential address at the annual meeting. Mr Fee said that it would be just as logical to blame local legislation for the substantial drop that had recently taken place in the price of wool as it*would be to give credit for the high price obtained for that product 12 months ago. Improved prices were the results of improved conditions overseas for primary products. “We have seen a general rise in wages and a shortening of the hours of work, and it is around I hose objectives that the Government has concentrated most of its energy,” said Mr Fee. “If these objectives could have been attained without unduly affecting the general progress of prosperity of industry the Government would have been entitled to our unstinted praise.” In actual fact tin* country had seen the strenuous efforts of the Government in its unsuccessful endeavors to combat the rise in prices and tlie cost of living. The Government was also developing into a huge trading concern, offering strong and ever-increas-ing opposition to private enterprise and instituting monopolies and dras-

tic. restrictions that must have the effect of greatly damaging, if not destroying, the business concerned. Taxation had increased to such an extent that New Zealand was now the highest-taxed country in the world. BUILDERS DISORGANISED. “We have seen the house-building industry of the Dominion completely disorganised and many small builders put out of business by the efforts of the Government to nationalise the work of house construction, with the result that the cost of construction has risen by leaps and bounds, and the house shortage has become greatly accentuated by tin* vain endeavors of the Government to do the work itself,” Mr Foe continued. “As a natural result of the Government’s house-building policy we have seen restrictions imposed both in regard to rents and to the right of an owner to occupy his own house.” The usual avenues of investment were so seriously affected, said Mr Fee, that thousands of thrifty people and widows had their incomes so depleted that they had the greatest difficulty in making ends meet. The Government attempted to provide work for thousands of unemployed by the expedient of putting them on pick and shovel work of a temporary nature, without ambition or hope for the future, instead of encouraging private enterprise among them. Class had also been set against class to the detriment of productive efficiency, instead of being urged to co-operate so that the efficiency of enterprise could he raised. WORKERS NOT BENEFITED. Though all this had been done with the intention of helping the worker, the alleged advantages had been more than offset by the rise in the cost of living. “Of course the worker is better off than in tho unfortunate times of the depression,” Mr Fee concluded, “but comparisons must be made with other prosperous times, not with times of depression. On the other side of the picture we have to remember the great increase that has taken place in the cost of living and all the other undesirable features I have mentioned. ’ ’