SOCIALISATION IN N.Z. HAS COME TO AN END

Wanganui Chronicle, 14 December 1949, Page 5

SOCIALISATION IN N.Z. HAS COME TO AN END

WELLINGTON, Last Night (PA).— “There is not going to be any more socialisation in New Zealand. The peg went in this afternoon,” said the Prime Minister, Mr. Holland, at a Press conference tonight, when he was asked whether the Government intended to purchase the Renown Collieries.

“That is not to say that the Government will never buy anything,” continued Mr. Holland, “but traders, manufacturers and farmers will now be free to go ahead and make a success of their businesses, enterprises and farms, and they will be free from the fear that their reward for increased production will be that their enterprises will be taken over by the State. Perhaps shareholders in the Renown Collieries might like to revise their views now that they are free from the fear of conscription.”

An offer by the State to purchase Renown Collieries, Ltd., near Huntly, for £186,000, was made to shareholders of the company, and is to be considered by “them at an extraordinary general meeting in Auckland on Thursday. The former Government offered to purchase the ordinary shares of the company for 25s each, and the preference shares for 3s each. The offer was in the hands of the directors late in November, but the announcement was deferred until December 6 at the request of the Labour Government.

In a circular to shareholders advising them to accept the offer, the chairman of directors, Mr. W. F. Brooke-Taylor, said the directors considered acceptance desirable and in the interests of shareholders. In all circumstances, the price offered was fair and reasonable.