STATE INTERFERENCE WITH TRADE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2651, 27 October 1923, Page 4

STATE INTERFERENCE WITH TRADE.

THE .QUESTION OF POOLS AND TRUSTS. It is not very many years ago that the public of New Zealand were up in arms against the formation of Trusts and Combines and amongst the most bitter opponents of these forms of monopoly were to be found the Labour bodies.e Of recent times there has been considerable change in thought even amongst those who were' regarded as cautious and conservative. This is very marked in the ease of many leaders of the farming community, particularly in the North Island. Principles of interference with freedom of trade in relation to our industries, both primai’y and secondary, which at one time would have been scouted as dangerous, are now treated as quite innocent and safe. The movement towards “one big union” and “one big pool” goes on apace, and all the way .along there are the demands from each section in succession that Parliament shall give legal sanction, which results very often in the Government being represented on the controlling authority. Thus, stage by stage the principle of State interference with trade and industry is being embodied in laws and administration.

We have a section of tile farmers calling for “one big union of farmers” with butter, meat and wool pools. In another direction we find the Alliance of Labour aiming at “one big union” of labour, including State employees, and seeking their particular method of pooling all labour interests. Those who support the compulsory pooling of butter producers’ interests will have a difficulty in showing how they can consistently oppose the compulsory pooling of labour interests. Last session of Parliament —by the Butter Control Bill —power was given to a majority of those in the dairying industry- to compel the minority to act as they desired. That is just the sort of legislative principle that the Socialist Labour Party want and it is notable that, whilst the other parties were divided on the question, the Labour Party was solid in support of this principle of compulsion. It was indeed pitiful to observe how a number of members sheltered themselves in a kind of coward’s castle by adopting the Referendum suggested. The responsibility was not thereby shifted on to the producers, for Parliament must still take the blame of providing the legislative sanction first of compulsion by majority rule in private trade and added thereto a measure of State interference with the control of the industry. Mr A. D. McLeod, M.P., for Wairarapa, in a post-sessional address, protested that this legislation was not socialism, but the only alternative to socialism. We recognise that it is not full fledged socialism, which implies complete State ownership. It comes rather near, however, to syndicalism which spells collective ownership and control (of the industry by those engaged in it. Syndicalism and socialism agree in sinking the rights of the individual in the collective body. Not full socialism or syndicalism this compulsion and State interference —granted —but it leads —where? Mr McLeod says “He had always understood socialism as meaning handing over to the State the control of almost everything.” Just so, and if we go on handing a little control here, a little more there, and keep that up, the question arises—where are we going to end? To say that extending the power of compulsion by majority rule and State interference in industrial affairs is the only alternative to State socialism (as Mr McLeod does) is to avow that private initiative and voluntary effort has become bankrupt. That is really the cry of socialist advocates everywhere and is, in our opinion, quite unsound. The alternative to socialism is greater freedom in trade, industry and commerce. We want to .get a way from the restrictions of the war period, not burden ourselves with more restrictions. In general the war restrictions are uneconomic and were never designed for continuous use. Individual initiative and voluntary effort must be encouraged, and not depressed if we are to recover full virility in the economic field. There is no objection—nor can there be any—to the farmers, or any other class, handling their affairs on lines of organised collective effort, provided it is free and voluntary. We have doubts of the wisdom of the farmers who want to be farmers, traders, shippers, bankers, and politicians, all at the same time, but if they do so freely and voluntarily, as individuals, we can raise no objection. It is their business. The idea that any class in society can economically live to itself alone is a fallacy which time has proven and experience will euro. The interdependence of economic relations and the . value of specialisation are facts we cannpt get away from, try how we will. Our objejtion is not to organisation, but to the compulsion of majority rule and the encroachment of the State in the spheres of industry, trade and commerce, as we are confident that their personal initiative and voluntary effort, individual and organised, can do far more for society and the general welfare than the most .perfect State machinery can possibly accomplish. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League).