LABOUR BOYCOTT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 299, 19 December 1945, Page 5

LABOUR BOYCOTT

CONDEMNED BY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE REGRET AT FANNING OF CLASS WAR (P.A.) Wellington, Dec. 18. “A report from New Plymouth of a suggested boycott of firms who leave the Bank of New Zealand displays ignorance by the Taranaki Trades Council of the functions of Chambers of Commerce organisations that is only equalled by its lack of logic,” says the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in a statement to-day. “It seeks to fasten the same narrow party political conceptions on Chambers of Commerce which it freely confesses to be its own stock in trade. While asserting that a Chamber ot Commerce is ‘a vicious subsidiary o. the National Party,’ it calls on, among others, ‘Government supporters' to ‘place their orders with firms who did not mix business with politics.’ Its

assertion is wholly false. It should know it to be false, for the aims and objects of the Chambers of Commerce have been publicly proclaimed often enough. On the other hand its appeal to ‘Government supporters’ proclaims it is purely a Labour Party organisation, designed to serve sectional interests, and to instigate class war.

“The Chambers of Commerce have never denied their interest in politics. They are forced to be political in the widest sense, because politicians and political organisations insist on making politics out of business. If commercial interests of the nation and the well-being of the people are to be properly served, it is essential that the chambers—with their special business qualifications—take an active part in discussions on political questions, to praise, advise, or to warn, regardless of what political party is in power The Chambers of Commerce belong to no political party. .It is impossible they should, because their membership comprises supporters of all parties, and of no party. The only thing that counts is the effect a proposed measure is likely to have on the nation as a whole, not any particular section of it. There is ample evidence of this in innumerable public statements issued by the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand for years, prior to the Labour Partv beecoming the Government and since. Whatever opposition to the present Government has come from the Chambers of Commerce has been due to the Government's determination to destroy completely that individuality and initiative, which, combined with free enterprise. were responsible for raising New Zealand to an honoured place in the world, and to replace that sound system by Socialism, which aims to regiment the people into being State employees.”