LORD BARNBY

Hokitika Guardian, 9 December 1930, Page 6

LORD BARNBY

ADVICE TO NEW ZEALAND. (By:Telegraph—Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 9. Speaking on' New Zealand conditions to the Chamber of'Commerce, Lord Barnby said as he understood it, the situation would call lor legislation bv an agreement making it possible for simultaneous' amendments of all existing awards of the Arbitration Court. That like other actions, necessarily required courage and submergence ot party interests by local statesmen, but this was a real emergency and local patriotism should make the course possible. It would follow that with equal courage the railways should he reorganised as an ordinary commercial undertaking and made .tree from political influence. Why try to evade the unesoapable logic that it was no longer a monopoly, since road transportation,; private and collective, was an irrepressible competitor, which had come to stay. Social service legisla tion and extension of bureaucracy, however, was desirable in prosperity, and must in current adversity be rigorously denied . and: ’ even ruthlessly curtailed.

Payments' made for relief' work should be limited to a basis sufficiently below current'rates, for normal'employment to put such relief work into j)roper relation to general wage rate, and remove the risk of such leliel payments disturbing the existing employed. Action by New Zealand along these and other obvious lines would alone appear likely to give confidenceto loan holders, and when a correction had been effected, make available to Now Zealand funds which, like all new developing countries, she must have to ensure sound, product progress.