POST-WAR INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 14, 12 October 1943, Page 6

POST-WAR INDUSTRY

Fight To Shake Off Burden Of Officialdom FREEDOM OF CHOICE FOR MAKER AND BUYER “Industry is quite justified in feeling that it will have the fight of its life when the war is over to shake oil the officialdom which has fastened on its back,” remarks the “Metal Trades Journal” (Sydney) editorially in its issue of September 1, 19-13. “This apprehension is founded, not on any narrow antagonism to officialdom or criticism of the war job officialdom is doing, but on veiled threats issued" by responsible Ministers from time to time. “It is a simple, elementary human factor that the initiative of free enterprise will outstrip the routine mind of officialdom in the production of those articles and goods which promote the stan'dard of living and the wealth of the nation. Therefore, industry has no desire to be held back by such a handicap. Not any plan for social security, nor any political nostrum can get around the fact that the only way to secure freedom from want is by providing gainful employment for all. It. is all right to say officialdom has done a good job in its control of war production —it probably has—it has only one buyer (the Government), and it knows what it wants (ammunition, guns, planes, etc.). “It is a different thing to argue that officialdom can control peacetime production. It cannot; It cannot presume to deny the right of seven and a half million individual buyers to select for themselves and buy according to their taste the size, shape, composition or colour of the thousand and one articles produced by industry. Industry must fight to organize itself to compete for these tastes and the markets it is experienced to handle. “Moreover, the vast majority of the people must engage directly or indirectly in the production and distribution of goods, or the rendering of essential services : non-productive, non-essentisl employment must be kept at a minimum, otherwise we have ‘too many existing on the production of too few? -A dole is still a dole, even though it be increased from 20/- to 30/- a week, and is called by some other name.

“There is need for Government, through the Secondary .Industries Commission, and industry- to co-operate to solve the problems that lie ahead for both.. It would be the duty of the commission on the oue- hand to cultivate a healthy state in which industry may flourish free from the suspicions that every Government move is part of its socialization programme.

“A message from New York informs us that the overseas shipping situation has so improved that there are now actually more ship.® than there are essential cargoes. In the United Kingdom, the volume of war production is likewise reported to be on the point of passing its peak: while here, in Australia, signs arc not wanting to show thaj: similar changes are occurring in this country’s wartime industries. The manufacture of tanks and certain other classes of munitions is being curtailed or replaced by other lines. The manufacture of agricultural machinery is being extended. Men are being paid-off. Overtime is being reduced, and there is likewise some falling off in the demand for light machining work on the part of sub-contractors. Government orders are now bearing the clause known as the Governmental ‘breaks’ clause, which stipulates that, in the event of the contract being suddenly broken off, the supplier shall be paid for all work carried out to date, and also .reimbursed for all expenditure to which he has committed himself by reason of the contract.

’ “These signs may merely portend certain temporary changes in the nature of our war production rather than any substantial or permanent diminution in its yolume, but they nevertheless give rise to inquiry as to the methods to be adopted in bringing industry back from its existing wartime to a peacetime basis by a process of de-rationalization. “ . . . It is true that the present manufacturing restrictions, in the hands of a Government hostile to free enterprise, might be used to build up i Government industries in competition with existing industries.

“The foregoing gives only a glimpse of the cleaning up to be done before industry can get under way with the postwar problems.”