STATE INTERFERENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 14 April 1930, Page 8

STATE INTERFERENCE

IN MANY DIRECTIONS

MATTER OF NATIONAL CONCERN

i Associated Chambers of Commerce.)

At a gathering of members of the. New Zealand Dor.tal Association licicl in Auckland recently, allusions were made to the growing tendency of the Government, through its various departments, to obtrude upon the spheres of professional men. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects and others, it was said, were faced with opposition from the State which was justified neither by the needs of the public nor by the shortcomings of the professions. The doctors-and dentists had no objection to the State watching as closely as it pleased the medical and dental needs of children in the public schools or o>f children and adults in other public institutions of tho kind. They did not mind doing a great deal of gratuitions work themselves—that was the lot of their professions—hut they did protest against the State taking- out nf ■ their hands practice for which they had oualified by long years of study and labour, and handing it over to officials. who might nr might not bo a c we]l oualified, and who. in any case, would lie a charge upon the taxpayers.

OTHER EXAMPLES

About the same time as the doctors and dentists were making their protest m Auckland the fruitgroers in the Nelson district were laying their gritm ’ Ames aig;a(inst ineffective system of •Control” before the Minister of Agriculture. Mr McKee, their spokesman told the Hon. G. W. Forbes that the handling of the growers’ fruit in Wellington last year had cost the growers ■GoO.OOO as a result of delay “for wipel- - in Wellington was responsible.” The growers, it seems, did not suggest 'he abolition of control, but they wanted a strong capable organisation that would be really representative of their interests. Here is another protest against Government interference with private enterprise even when the intrusion is wrapped nn in the guise of industrial co-operation. Other examples of the results of Ptate meddling with private pn term rise may he gathered ! rnm the Kailway Statement for the bast financial year. The Wakatipu steamers showed a loss of £6.484; the departmental dwellings a loss of “£"176; the road motor services a loss of £fi,B7f), the railway sawmills and hush a loss of £29.057—a total of '£98.596. jagaiinst which refreshment rooms, bookstalls, advertising and odds and ends returned onlv £21,226 , leaving a net loss of £77,370. j

EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA

Mention of railways recalls the story told by a prominent “captain of industry” of what befel the United States dines when-at the beginning of the last year of the Great War they were handled over, tentatively, to the American Government. “After twenty-six months of mismanagement,” this authority told the New Orleans Association of Commerce, “the Government surrendered the rails with a heritage of four or five billions of dollars saddled on to tlie country, flippantly alleged to fairly represent a legitimate war cost, although much of it was inexcusable, avoidable waste; a scale of operating expenses 3,000,000,000 dollars more than in 1917, and so burdensome as to make it cost almost 100 cents to earn each dollar of gross revenue In 1917 the railroads had i 964,052 shop men; in March, 1920. 3 7 8, 235, and increase of 113,652 or 43 per cent.” Other testimony can j be only indented. “In the main,” , said the Hon. F. 11. Kellogg, “ the pr*- • sent deplorable condition of the rail- j roads is due to the inefficient and ex- ; trav.-ifTniit Government mnnncoment and st’und bureaucratic control.” “As a result of a year’s study of this proMem.” decla'ed the Hon. Atlec Pomerene. “T sav there has never been hi the history of the railroads of this roi'nfrv ns mm-h extra valence and hi-1 efficiency as there has been under this unified control.” And so on ami so on to the length of wearv iteration.

A PAIR PIPED.

Ti must not be assumed that these allusions to the railway conditions in

America during 1917 and 1918 are intended to imply that the conditions o! the State railways in New Zealand are in peril of reaching a similar condition, ft is true that away back in the early eighties there were members of Parliament urging that the New Zealand railways should be'sold in order to relieve the colony—as the Dominion then was—of its accumulating debts; but through all the years there has been no suggestion that any one of the succeeding Governments has done less than, its best to secure satisfactory results from the lines. Tt remains, however, for the Government, whatever its title or its colour may be, to see that the vnibyors of the Dominion are placed upon n sound basis, and that all their subsidiary undertakings are justified by results or promptly, scrapped. There is no sound reason why. the taxpayers should be maintaining steamers to carry holiday makers to tourist resorts or why they should he providing the means of running State sawmills at a loss. These are items belonging to a class of subjects which rarely, receive the attention thev should from Parliament and on that account should have the closest scrutiny from the Government of the day.

“THE NEW DESPOTISM.” Under this heading Lord Hewnrt, Lord Chief Justice of England, has lately published a book in which he points out that public departments at Homo have assumed the powers of Parliament and the duties of the Law Courts. ‘“They have,” it is put bluntly by a distinguished commentator, “taken power to make regulation of the judges at their pleasure.” This sweeping statement has a direct bearing upon the various matters just indicated here. The Board of Trade Act, still on the New Zealand Statute Book, gives the departments here even greater mandatory authority than do the regulations in the Mother Country mentioned by the Lord Chief Justice. And yet an apathetic public in the Dominion is content to leave the Board of Trade Act on the Statute Book to he put into operation by any Government that wishes to get its own way without the authority of either Parliament or people. “The judges are deliberately pushed aside,” says the “Daily Telegraph” in commenting upon the English Act. “The department is not to he challenged. It gives no reasons. It never explains. It frequently will not even hear the other side.” In New Zealand the Judges and the other side are given no standing at all. The department is supreme.