BOARD OF TRADE ACT.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17614, 19 January 1929, Page 5

BOARD OF TRADE ACT.

STILL ON STATUTE BOOK. MINISTERIAL RULE. (Taxpayer.) With the prospect of Parliament opening earlier than usual this year, and with the certainty of it being confronted with an exceptionally large amount of work, it will not be inopportune -to remind the members of both Houses—the Prime Minister and his colleagues in particular—that the superfluous Board of Trade Act still lingers on the Statute Book. It will be remembered that towards the end of last session the Hon. A. I). McLeod, then Minister of Industries and Commerce, in discharge of a promise he had given, made an attempt to get rid of the obnoxious features of the Act and to retain its desirable clauses in a separate measure. Unfortunately an unprecedented rush of work during the closing hours of the session compelled the Government to postpone the introduction of the amending Bill to a more convenient season. The proposals are in print, however, and as they are neither lengthy nor contentious, there is no reason why they should not pass on to the Statute Book as expeditiously as did the amending Bill of 1923, which passed through all its stages in both Houses in little more than an hour.

From Board to Minister. On that occasion Sir Francis Bell explained to the Legislative Council that the passage of the Bill was made urgent by the fact that the existing machinery had ceased to operate, while the Hon. W. Downic Stewart, who was in charge of the measure in the other branch of the Legislature, declared that the main purpose of the proposed legislation was to substitute an inexpensive Minister for an expensive board. The chief contributors to such discussion as the Bill induced were Sir Thomas Mackenzie, in the Legislative Council, and Mr G. W. Forbes in the House of Representatives. “If this department is to be reconstituted," said Sir Thomas in one passage, “I hope it will be revivified. So far as I have been able to ascertain the board and the department have been dead letters. . . I am sure that if we had an up-to-date department much that is being urged In connection with the meat pool, the dairy pool and other pools might have been done without having recourse to these measures at all.” Mr Forbes, now holder of the portfolios of Lands and Agriculture in the new Ministry, confined himself mainly to an analysis of the effect increased Customs duties would have upon the trade and commerce of the country; but as he is now a Minister of the Crown he need not be encumbered by any allusion to his utterances of five or six years ago.

Good Intentions. Though both Sir Thomas Mackenzie and Mr Forbes denounced the sins of omission of the Board of Trade neither of them seems to have realised fully the magnitude of the authority conferred upon the Minister by the legislation of 1923. Even now the facts will bear repetition: * The Minister of Industries and Commerce, representing the Government, waj* given an absolute^authorltj^j'i) ' ' t.. . ?V

to prevent and suppress any method of competition or trading or business. he thought unfair or prejudicial to the . public welfare; (2) to suppress mono-, policies and combinations in relation to any industry; (3) to fix maximum' or minimum prices or rates for any class of goods or services; and (5) i to regulate and control industries ia; any other manner whatever. The good intentions of Iho authors of this despotic legislation need not b<vi doubled. The Minister and his ooFleagues simply had overlooked the fact! that war provisions no longer wer©t necessary and that a return to normal trading conditions was among the crying needs of the country. It has fallen to the lot of the new Government to give effect to the good intentions of the old. It is to be hoped there will he no delay in the discharge of tha obligations.