GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

Hokitika Guardian, 7 August 1928, Page 4

GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

LABOUR’S EXPERIENCE

UNSATISFACTORY SERVICE

(Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee). Government interference with private business is rather a matter of policy than a matter of politics. It is well to hear this fact in mind when discussing a subject which has begun to attract a good deal of interested attention in this country. The point may be illustrated by a few extracts from a speech delivered at the May Convention of the Queensland Labour Party by Mr \V. McCormack, the. head of the present Queensland Labour Government. Mr McCormack did not talk of politics, but of the deplorable failure of the Government's excursions into business. Tho service the State obtained at Cliillogoe was bad, lie said. He knew that, because he had worked at the mines there; and yet the Government had paid tho men engaged three times more than the private company had paid. The Government could not keep nationalised enterprises going at a loss because that would mean more taxation and an increase in the cost of living. Labour could control industry provided it gave the social service necessary towards that end; but the idea of going slow in order to create employment was a had and a rotten one.

“MAKES ONE TIITXK.”

Summarising his experience of State interference with private enterprise Mr McCormack was quite frank. The Government, he told the Convention, had been absolutely compelled to close down the State's business enterprises because it could not get tho service necessary to render them sufficiently profitable to justify their continuance. There was no doubt in the ease of the sugar mills 'that “boss ’ rule had. ruined tho State, undertaking. At the Rabiuda mill the conditions were excellent in every respect and yet the Government could not carry on the enterprise without incessant trouble. Men who had occasioned no worry at all to the Colonial Sugar Company were a constant hindcranco and annoyance during the State’s operation of the mill. Finally the concern was handed over to the farmers in the district and its efficiency at once was increased by 30 per cent and theic was no longer any trouble with the men. “It makes one think and hesitate,” was Mr McCormack’s reflection upon the outcome of the Government’s experiment. The discussion in which the Queensland Prime Minister took part was initiated by Mr Ranclolp Bedford, another member of tho Queensland Parliament, who submitted to tiie convention a motion, which was ultimately carried, to the eflect that the education of the people to more efficient service, both in State and private enterprise, was a condition precedent to the achievement of Socialism. POLICY OF DRIFT. Tt is evident that Mr McCormack and his colleagues have reached a i stage in their State enterprises at j which they well may “think and • hesitate.” Tt is not for New Zealand. , however, to chide them with their ; trading proclivities. The Dominion • has gone a very considerable way j along the same road and has not yet I mustered up courage enough to proi claim a. halt. It has drifted into' j competition with private enterprise. J rather than deliberately entered upon 1 the perilous paths of trade and commerce. and has acquired a score or I two business responsibilities which are

altogether outside the range of legitimate Stale adventures. Unfortunately there is no ready means of ascertaining how much these responsibilities arc costing the taxpayers of

all decrees. Tho Prime Minister is doing his host to obtain the balance sheets upon which his predecessors in office insisted, but apparently many heads of departments still manage to evade the requirements of the situation. It would lie quite safe to assume, however, that nine-tenths of these State trading concerns are being run at a loss and are contributing nothing to the comfort and welfare of the community that could not he at least as well supplied by private enterprise. The Prime (Minister of Queensland, whatever his politics may he. has quoted actual experiences which the Dominion might well consider.