BACK TO FREEDOM

Hokitika Guardian, 9 March 1929, Page 7

BACK TO FREEDOM

THE FIRST STEP

(Nineteen 'Tweiity-EigSht Committee)

Perhaps it is not too early, with the (irst regular session of a new Pearliament in sight, to remind the Government and the public at large that the Board of Trade Act, which was marked down for repeal by the late Government, is still on the Statute Book. The Bight Hon. J. G. Coates, the Reform Prime Minister, and the Hon. A. I). .McLeod, the Reform Minister of Industries and Commerce, had decided after an exhaustive examination of the Act and its operations that it would be easier to end it than it would be to mend it, and then hi embody its necessary provisions in a new measure. Steps towards this end "ere taken without any unavoidable delay, nut unfortunately the eagerness of members of the House to get away to their constituencies on the eve of a general election necessitated the postponement of this and many other measures until the* session now impending. The good faith of the Ministers never was doubted, and many people, even now, are under the impression that the Act lias been actually repealed. 'I hat, as just indicated, is not the ease, and. though there, is good reason to believe that the present Government will carry out the intentions of its predecessors in this rsepect, this is no time to allow so important a matter to drift. The Board of Trade Act-as it stands on The Statute Book to-day empowers tbc Hon. .1. G. Cobbe. the new Minister of Industries and Commerce, to suppress competition, to prevent combination in relation to any industry, to fix maximum and minimum prices

or rates or any class of goods e.r services and to regulate and control industries in any other way he may deem desirable. Mr Cobbe is a man to be trusted, and withal a man of prudence and experience, but no Czar of Russia in all his glory ever was clothed with such authority as that thrust upon this modest Minister of the Crown at tin* present time.