GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1928, Page 4

GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS

POLITICAL LABOUR'S APPROVAL,

WOULD-BE BED-FELLOWS

(Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee.) An unfortunate feature of party government in New Zealand is its tendency to magnify personal acliiovoineiit above public service. A Prime Minister comes back from a hotly-contested election with a majority of ten or twelve, obtained on one single issuelicensing, electoral reform, land tenure or some burning question ■ cVf the moment—and for the next three years the affairs of the country remain practically in bis hands. Such cases are not common, it is true, but they linvo occurred and they will occur again. A Prime Minister allows bis pledged supporters to vote as they please on non-essential issues; but when the policy or tlio existence of the Government is challenged the private member has no alternative. This code is not peculiar,to the party in office. It is, as a rule, just as punctiliously observed by the “outs” as it is by the “ins.” Tlid present Labour Party, however, | imagines that it lias found a bond of I sympathy between itself and the Be-! form Party. Ignoring Mr Coates’s ! slogan “Less Government in business and more business in Government,” the leader of the Labour Opposition and bis followers are pluming themselves upon having induced the Prime Minister, to withhold bis band in this respect. BUSINESS MEN AND PARLIAMENT That Mr Coates will be so easily diverted from the principle implied by bis slogan no one acquainted with the man and His career will beliove. in any case, there is a large section of tlie .community still to be heard on this subject. Business interests have been inadequately represented in Parliament for many years past. It is easy to sav that this is tlie fault of the business 1 men themselves, and in a measure the I retort is justified. But business men of the type that would be of great value to tlio constituencies and to tlie Dominion in the House of Representatives literally cannot afford to spend

four or five months away from their homes and their offices. There may be a mail here and there, who, owing to exceptional circumstances or extraordinary zeal, might be induced to make such a sacrifice; but even so what chance, under tlio existing system of election, would a man of this type, unacquainted with the arts of selfadvertising and popularity hunting, have of winning a seat, say against any of the Labour members? The first-class business mail, to put it bluntly, is not available for Parliamentary service unless lie is obsessed by an impelling .sense of duty. SERVICE WITHOUT PARTY.

A few months ago, however, it occurred to a number of professional and commercial men that, without obtruding upon the domain of the politicians and without siding with this political party or that, it might be possible for them to render some service to the community by examining frankly and fairly the problems created by what has boon called “Government interference with business.” The idea c-auglit oil quickly, was endorsed by numbers of business and professional men, and in (bo coiuse was taken in band by what is now styled “ The Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee.” The declaration with which-tlio Committee nimov.iivcd itself was as follows: 1 ‘That Gbybrhineut activities and functions 'should'lie limited and restricted to those matters only which cannot be undertaken by individuals or groups of individuals; and that the greatest possible scope should he given to the ifrce working of tlio natural laws of supply and demand and to tile development of individual 'initiative and ability; and, therefore, that existing State institutions and public . bodies the functions of which are I

in conflict with the spirit of the above principle, should bo so dealt with ns to conform thereto by a process of gradual adjustment.” This may be regarded as tlie Com littee’s charter. AN OPEN INVITATION.

Spanking'in the House of Representatives Inst week Mr Holland find other members of the Labour Party roundly denounced the prompters of the NineIcon Twenty-Eight Committee as a pack of “ profiteers ”' and a menace to the welfare of the community. Particularly they took the Committee to task for having maligned the Public Trust Office, the Public Trustee aiul all their works and for having suggested that private enterprise could manage such an institution much hotter than tile State had done. All that was lacking in this indictment was the element of truth. Of this there was never ri, shred) The Committee so far has made no comment upon the Public Trust Office and its management. It lias obtained reports and it has been supplied with information. It has' realised the great value of the institution and it may suggest some change.in its administration. Meanwhile the Labour Party’s “ intelligent anticipation” of what the Committee is going to say is excelled only by the zeal of the party’s official newspaper in cmitradictfirg all the unspoken strictures of the Committee. It remains merely to suggest that Mr Holland and his colleagues should look into the “ machinations ” and “ conspiracies ” of the 10*18 Com-

mittee for themselves. All that the members of the Committee know about tiicir own undertaking is available to any accredited representative of the Labour Party.