GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1928, Page 19

GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS.

POSITION OF 192 S COMMITTEE REPLY TO CRITICISM. The recent debate in the House on State trading has drawn a statement from the 1928 Committee, which was referred to in the discussion. “Ignoring Mr. Coates* slogan, 'Less Government in business and more business in Government,’ the leader of the Labour Opposition and his followers are pluming themselves upon having induced the Prime Minister to withhold his hand in this respect,” says the committee. "That Mr. Coates will be so easily diverted from the principle implied by his slogan no one acquainted with the man and his career will believe. In any case, the~e is a large section of the community still to be heard on this subject. Business interests have been inadequately represented in Parliament for many years past. It is easy to say that this is the fault of the business men themselves, and in a measure the retort is justified. But business men of the type that would be of great value to the constituencies and to the Dominion in the House of Representatives literally cannot afford to spend four or five months away from their homes and their offices. There may be a man here and there, who, owing to exceptional circumstances or extraordinary zeal, might be induced to make such a sacrifice; but even so, what chance, under the existing system of election, would a man of this type, unacquainted with the arts of self-adver-tising and popularity-hunting, have of winning a seat, say, against any of the Labour members? The first-class business man, to put it bluntly, is not available for Parliamentary service unless he is obsessed by an impelling sense of duty. “A few months ago, however, it occurred to a number of professional and commercial men that, without obtruding upon the domain of the politicians and without siding with this political party or that, it might be possible for them to render some service to the community by examining frankly and fairly the problems created by what has been called ‘Government interference in business.’ The idea caught on quickly, was endorsed by numbers of business and professional men, and in due course was taken in hand by what is now styled ‘The 1928 Committee.’ The declaration with which the committee announced itself was as follows:—‘That Government activities and functions should be limited, and restricted to those matters only which cannot be undertaken by individuals or groups of individuals; and that the greatest possible scope should be given to the free working of the natural law of supply and demand and to the development of individual initiative and ability; and, therefore, that existing State institutions and public bodies, the functions of which are in conflict with the spirit of thf above principle, should be so dealt with as to conform thereto by a process of gradual adjustment.’ This may be regarded as the committee’s charter.