STATE ACTIVITIES AND PRIVATE ENTERPRISES

Hokitika Guardian, 17 July 1928, Page 4

STATE ACTIVITIES AND PRIVATE ENTERPRISES

AVHERE THEY CLASH,

(Nineteen Twenty-eight Committee). A day or two ago a deputation waited upon tho lion. A. D. McLeod, Ministers of Lands and Minister of Industries and Commerce, with a proposal that the Government should take over the Wanganui River Service, which lias been in existence for nearly half a century, and now, " it seems, is likely to lie abandoned by its present proprietors unless they can dispose of it as a going concern. The Minister, if is stated in a very brief summary of his interview with tbe deputation, explained “that it was not the policy of the Government to take over private businesses if -it could be at all avoided,” luit “it would be prepared to consider the question of a subsidy.” The statement was a perfectly right and proper one, and Mr McLeod, no don,bt, will bo as good as bis word. Tt may be permissible to point out. however, that it always is possible for the Government to avoid taking over private businesses and that it should be comparatively easy to do so in eases where the present proprietors arc preparing to abandon them. PERILS OF THE AVAY. In the course of his contribution I lithe Address-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives. Mr A. Harris, the member for AYa'itemata. reminded his political friends of their duty to tho State and the community. There was no doubt, he said, that New Zealand was drifting towards Socialism. That state of affairs might please the Labour Party, hut it was perilous to the welfare of the country. The gradual, indeed rapid, increase of State activities within the sphere of private enterprise was causing great concern. ... If there was one thing New Zealand needed more than another it was encouragement of the utilisation of private capital. Unfair competition on tho part of the State must act detrimentally upon the whole community. In some cases private capital had been ruthlessly confiscated. . . . For the State- to encroach upon private enterprise iv an unfair way was to strike at the very rout of national prosperity. I L was, in short, simply suicidal. AT--1 h's, it must be remembered, was from tho linx of a political friend. P.AILAVAYjS AND BUSES. In the-cour.se of the same debate. Mr George Forbes, the member for Hurunui, who is not on the same side of polities as Mr Harris and perliau' spoke with more bias than did the member for AVaitemata. strongl condemned the attempts of the Railway Department to run the privatelyowned buses off the roads. This development of State interference, he said, was going to cost the country thousands of pounds without adding anything to the revenue of the Department. The loss on the buses simply would he added to tho loss on tho railways. Mr Forbes did not go too deeply into details, and maybe when tho Prime Minister comes to reply ho will put a different complex- I ion upon the situation : hut mean- j while there is a widespread feeling, i not confined to an particular section of tho community, that the Railway J Department is not getting the better of the transport war. Here, again. | however, perhaps judgment should he I suspended until the new General Manager has had an opportunity to be- j come acquainted with the whole posi- I tion and to put his own remedies into ' operation.