A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 1, 24 September 1937, Page 4

A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT.

It will seem to most people, even to those of his own side in politics, to be entirely regrettable that the Member for Stratfofd should have chosjsn to introduce into yesterday's discussion on the Fair Rents Amendment Bill reference to matters that were purely personal to one of the Cabinet Ministers and that Mr. Nash was fully justified in resenting the implications. It is quite obvious that, unless Ministers are prepared to renounce all individual concern in business affairs and refrain from making investments of any kind, it is always possible that legislation put forward by the Government to which they belong will in some way affect their personal interests. In fact, such a concatination of circumstance is almost inevitable at one time or another. Measures such as that which was before the House are to be discussed on the principles involved and on their probable practical effect and, unless there are specific,* substantial and maintainable charges of personal advantage to be advanced, then the personal element should be excluded altogether. Mr. Nash has, in his ministerial capacity, laid himself open to plenty ojf criticism and 'it is in that capacity alone that he should be publicly criticised, unless, as has been said, there should emerge some more or less flagrant case of his allowing personal interest to influence the trend of current legislation, and that was in no way made apparent in the present instance. As for the Fair Rents Act, for which, in its origin, the present Government is in no way responsible, it was doubtless passed with the very best of good intentions. . At the same time, however, it may be confidently said that the shortage of dwelling-houses with which the present Government twits the one that passed it is to a very great extent due to the limitations and restrictions imposed by it upon house-owners as landlords, and the extension of the Act can scarcely but have the same deterrent effect. Only those who may be in a position to build bouses for their own permanent occupation are at all likely to enter upon any such undertaking. Such are some of the reactions of even the most benevolently intentioned legislation.