THE QUEENSLAND EXAMPLE.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 November 1919, Page 4

THE QUEENSLAND EXAMPLE.

Hie experience of Queensland iis quoted by the official candidates of the New Zealand Labour party as a striking illustration of the favourable results that are attainable under Labour administration and under a system of State ownership and control of industry. For nearly the whole of the period covered by the wtar the policy of Queensland wag directed by a Labour .Government which is still in office. That Government has held power, therefore, for a period long enough to afford a fair test of its competence, and the extensions of State activity upon which it has embarked have been so varied as to admit of the formation of a reasonable judgment concerning the validity of the claim, which is put forward on behalf of the Labour Party in this dominion, that the nationalisation of essential industries would he in the interests of the country as a whole. Tlie record of Queensland under its Labour Government is actually one that should serve as a warning against placing the. destinies of this country in the hands of the adventurous but inexperienced politicians who are seeking election in what Mr J. T. Paul calls the sacred cause of Labour: That record, in its general aspect, has been briefly summarised in an Australian paper, the Bulletin, which certainly cannot be accused of being unsympathetic to the legitimate aspirations of Labour. Under the control of the Labour Government, ' Queensland, instead of being tbe cheapest Australian State to live in, has become almost the dearest. The advance in the cost of living in Queensland is greater than in any other Australian State. The profit shown by the Queensland railways before the Labour Party came into power has been turned into a record deficit. .

Queensland has had more labour disputes than all the other States put together. and the unemployment, as shown by trade-union returns, is greater in proportion to population than anywhere else. From being the State with almost the minimum of taxation Queensland has, under the Labour Government, been burdened with a weight of taxation that “leaves all the other States out of sight.” Those are some of the results of which Queensland has an experience after five years’ control of her affairs by a Labour Government. They are hardly of such a nature as should create in the people of this dominion a longing for the advent of a Labour Government in this country nor for such a strengthening of the Labour Party in Parliament as might enable it to make and unmake Ministries at its sweet pleasure. Nor are the results of the State enterprises into which the Labour Government in Queensland has launched less unsatisfactory. A report by the State Auditor-general, covering the financial and trading operations of the Government for tlie twelve months ended the 30th June last, is illuminating in its exposure of the unsoundness of most of these vaunted enterprises. Established on the proceeds of loans they seem to have run the State into debt to an additional extent of £534,738. It is in face of a result such, as this, however, that the people of this dominion are being told that the trading activities of the Queensland Government have been wonderfully successful and that they are being recommended to adopt a policy of nationalisation of industries. The experience of Queens land under a Labour Government has in reality been an expensive one for the taxpayers of the State and it is emphatically not one which should induce the residents of New Zealand to venture upon a corresponding extension of tbe activities of the State in this country under similar auspices.—Dunedin Times,