“UNCONTROLLED CONTROL”

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 233, 29 June 1944, Page 4

“UNCONTROLLED CONTROL”

Dr. Mazengarb’s address at the Institute of Public'Administration in Wellington underlines previous warnings published in these columns against the dangers to the liberty of the subject of what he himself describes as “Uncontrolled Control.” For reasons of space it has been necessary to condense considerably his well-reasoned, temperate, and, impartial’ survey of present-day. tendencies in the direction. of official regimentation of the private citizen and his rightful activities. Much of it has been made known to the public through the protests of the steadily-increasing body of resentment provoked by the irksome restrictions imposed by officials to whom has been delegated authority to make regulations having the force of law, and against which, in many instances, there is no appeal to the protection of the courts of justice. On the subject of State control in general, Dr. M.azengarb admits that there, is a case for it within certain limits which should be rigidly defined, and where it operates, it should conform to rules and practices that will enable official decrees and methods to be checked as to their- legal authority and their effects' upon the constitutional liberties of the people. He warns that unless these precautions are insisted upon, many State controls now operated under W.ar Emergency legislation may become permanent, and others spring into being in connexion with post-war rehabilitation and other cognate peacetime matters. How, he asks, are the controllers to be controlled ? It is no satisfactory answer, he replies to his own question, to say that the remedy lies in the power still possessed by the people as electors of abolishing the system by changing the Government. If certain forms of State control must always be necessary in the public interest then the problem of how to control the controllers becomes a standing question, calling for vigilant supervision on the part of citizens as to the scope and use of their powers, and the provision of an established procedure for the intervention of the courts of justice in cases where official authority either in decrees or in practice has been held answerable for vexatious or unreasonable exercise of vested authority. .

Dr.’ Mazengarb drew special attention to the far-reaching war emergency powers entrusted to the Government in 1940 when it was vested with authority by Order-in-Council to require persons “to place themselves, their services, and their property at the disposal of the Crown,” for maintaining supplies or services essential to the life of the community.” Under this power, he pointed out, the Government is now dealing with matters of post-war application. The ’Statute conferring these powers expires on September 30 next, “I. suggest that the time has arrived,” he commented, “when that authority should be reviewed, and public opinion organized against its extension for any further period.” This suggestion should find ample support from a public already restive against the restrictions of State controls operating over imports, marketing, supplies, transport, manpower, building, the newspaper Press, mining, and transactions in real estate —“types of control which,” as was pointed out by the speaker, “are especially resented by the public.”