COMMERCE CHAMBERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 108, 2 November 1940, Page 10

COMMERCE CHAMBERS

ANNUAL CONFERENCE

IMPORTANT REMITS

The Wellington and Canterbury Chambers of Commerce have combined in sponsoring a remit to the annual conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand expressing disapproval "of the increasing use of Orders in Council for affecting changes in the law, on the ground that it is contrary to the principles of democratic government" and urging the Government to discontinue the practice.

Other remits to be dealt, with by the conference, which opens in New Plymouth next Wednesday, include one from Auckland as.follows: "That this conference, while recognising the necessity under war conditions of a number of extensions to the sphere of Government control over and Government restrictions of private enterprise, urges the Government to give an undertaking for the removal of these controls as soon as possible on the cessation of hostilities."

The Wellington Chamber has prepared a remit expressing the view that it is not in the best interests of the Dominion that important. legislation should be passed without allowing reasonable opportunity to citizens and their organisations to make representations upon it, and recommending that in future the Government allow sufficient time between the introduction and passing of Bills for those concerned to submit constructive criticism and helpful suggestions.

With a view to providing now against the time when members of the Armed Forces will return and create a rehabilitation problem until permanent employment can be found for them, the Hastings Chamber is proposing that the Government be urged to have large areas of land ready, and to increase the work of afforestation upon suitable areas of land as near as possible to the centres of population, and also near to railways so as to minimise transport costs.

POPULATION PROBLEM.

The following remit has been prepared by the Canterbury Chamber:

''That this conference again draws attention to the imminence of a serious decline in New Zealand's population, which would be fraught with grave consequences, and urges, as a matter, of immediate and vital importance, that the Government set up a Royal Commission of experts, or similar nonparty body, to make a long-range survey and to formulate schemes regarding both the encouragement of larger families and the increasing of immigration on a substantial scale."

The Auckland Chamber will move: "That this conference views with grave concern the steady spiralling of costs as a result of progressively increasing award rates, and urges the Government to consider the advisability, as a war measure, of increasing production by the resumption of a 44-hour week, with payment for the additional hours at ordinary hourly rates."