GOING THE WHOLE HOG.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 59, 2 December 1937, Page 4

GOING THE WHOLE HOG.

It would seem as if the Minister of Finance and of Marketing kad sprung something of a snbterranean mine on the Honse pf Representatiyes when last night he intrqduced a Bill aipending the Primary Products Marketing Act. Some intimation kad been given tbat some sueh amending measure wonld , he submitted, b\it. members, or at any rate Opposition members, and the publie had been led to understand that it was mainly of a machinery eharg,cter and wpuld contnin no very com trpyersial matter. Certainly the Bill, ap ontlined in tOrday'§ payliapientary news is vCry largely of a machinery nature, but; the machinery is quite manjfestly designed for the pnrpose of earrying a step, and a, good long step, further the Gfoverninent 's veiled policy of securing eontrol of ''all nleans of production, distribntion and exchange. ' ' That, of courpe, means in the end rnnning the whole business of the cquntry. on Socialistic lines that are not very easy to distingujsh from Cornmunistie, as Mr. Nash no doubt discovered on his recent" yisit to Moscow, where, a? he has himself told us, he was so very hospitably welcomed and entertained, .When, without apy parliampntary authority, the Government paid Messrp, Picot some £70,000 for. their wholesale dairy produce outfit at ."Wellington, and hired the head of the firm at a salary of £2000 a year to run it for them, tbose who were intelligently watching the trend of events could scarcely fail to see that this was only the beginning of a big movement to gather into the Government's hands the conduct of the internal marketing pf alj farm fqod produets. The Bill now before the House goes only to make a further and more vexplicit revelation of this inteution, for the machinery it provides is sueh as to clothe the Minister with powers that will enable hfm virtuaUy to epmmandeer all sueh produce at priees to be fixed by himself apd to enter upon and carry on throughout the Dominion the buginesg pf marketing jt at prices to be similarly • preseribed. It is not only fpr the produeers and the wholesale and retail traders but also for the consuming community, to wa'ke up to all thap the institution of this vajst State monopoly may ultknately huply. "As to the produeers it can readily be seen that it will reduce them to the position of State epiplQyeeg at sueh remunepation a.s the Minister sees fit to give them, ahd they may rest very fully assured that in their case it will not, as with Mr. Picot, run to £2000 a year apiece. „ As tp the wholesale and retail distributors, and their staffs Qf epipjoyees, it is very obvious that the first that will have to go down before Governmeiit coinpetition will be the smaller copcerns. This is only in keeping with the preseAt Governments general policy, whjeh in |ts iudustrial legislation and in many pther ways has eonsistently and pers .istntly tended towa^ev. erushing out the smaller fry. There is, of course, a definite pnrpose in pursuing this line, for it will manifestly be much easicrr, when the final mopping up process comes to be put into effect, to have only a relatiye few hjgger concgrns te deal with. ( So far as coneerns the consumers they will just have to take what the Government chopses to offer them and pay the priees whieh the Government chooses to impoge on them. No one whq has any knowledge qf governmental metheds, and especially those pf th§ pregppt spendthyift Govprnment, is likely to believe that these pr*aes will b"e anything less than those ruling under the present system of healthy competition among private traders. The only alternative would be, as under Queensland's Lahour Government attempting like schemes, to pass on the losses to the uuhappy and helpless ta^payers, These are only some of the implications tp be detected from a cursory eonsideration of the Bill as summarised for us, though it may he further noted that it evidently contemplates the creation pf quite a numher of further fine fat billetg that are not at all likely to go to otlier tlian friends of the Govern? ment. What the public have to note, and note markedly, is that this so portentons measure has been byought down in the (lying days of the session, when it is almost impossible that it can be given tlie cloge and detailed eonsideration, discnssipn and publieity that it so pbvipusly eall§ fpr. That it will be fprced throngh, prpbably with a further liberal use pf the "gag," sp lpudiy condepined when Labour was in opposition, goes without saying. We have heard much in the past about *'dunib dogs" fn Parliament, but there have been few so Jittle daring to bark as the Lahour members our farmer friends elected twp years agQ to wateh and safeguard their interests, They are evidently kept on the chain and well mnzzled.