"ASTOUNDING"

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 72, 27 March 1933, Page 7

"ASTOUNDING"

INTERFERENCE IN BUSINESS

In,the report of the council of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce to be presented to the annual meeting .of the chamber on April 4, the following reference is made to the raising of the rate of exchange, the sales tax, and the Board of Trade Act:—

"Last November a definite and unqualified assurance was received from tho Prime Minister that tho Government would not interfere with the exchange, but would leave to the banks the'fixing of the rate in accord with the economic position of the country's trade exchanges. It was astounding to traders, after receiving such an assurance, that tho Government should later exert prcssuro upon the banks and have the rate advanced (on January 20, 1933) from 10 per cent, to 25 per cent., at which rate exchange is now pegged. "Business people have been strongly united in ■ protesting- against this breach of faith, and it has been much deplored that the exchange manipulation to an artificially high basis should so contradict the spirit of Ottawa and its atmosphere for closer links in trading-

"The business position has since been made still more difficult by the imposition of a sales tax—businesses have always been used as a principal vehicle for-tax-eollcetion on behalf of Government, and the additional interferences and harassments do not make for a bright outlook for those carrying on business operations in the Dominion." ' ;

"Thn repeal of the interfering and restrictive legislation embodied in the Board- of Trade Act, the Commercial Trusts Act, and the Cost of Living Act is still being pressed for, and a strong deputation waited upon the Prime Minister which was representative of all sections of business within, tho Dominion.' The Board of Trade Act, in its present form, is a most bureaucratic measure, and lias been used as the vehicle for Orders in Council for which the Act (passed originally in 1919 to make better provision.for tho maintenance and control of the industries, trade, and commerce of Jscw Zealand) could not be said to have been intended for peace-time operation (such as the export, credits pool and other regulations, and this year the wheat regulations). The early removal of these enactments for present and future interferences with the normal conduct of business ■will continue to bo pressed from Chambers of Commerce, and annual conferences havo reiterated to successive Governments tho urgency for_ attention; being given to repeal which will enable business to progress and advance for the better prosperity of the country."