STATE TRADING CONCERNS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2835, 17 January 1925, Page 3

STATE TRADING CONCERNS.

REVERSION TO PRIVATE MANAGEMENT. During the war there was a strong tendency in many countries to hand many economic enterprises over to the State. Stupendous losses resulted in many directions and now we find various governments unloading the heavy burdens as speedily as the political circumstances will allow. This movement of reversion is well described in what follows from the American Exchange National Bank Bulletin. The idea that there is something to be gained by having governments undertake various industrial services, thereby eliminating private profits, is one of the most persistent fallacies. It is a theoretical conception, based upon the assumption that government officials can and will manage industry as carefully and efficiently as private owners. The instances in which such results are obtained are rare for even where the management is personally capable, the conditions attaching to public operations usually are such as to make efficient management impossible. Of course the outstanding illustration of the incompetency of government management of industry just now is afforded by Russia, but in all the European countries which have been experimenting with government operations the results are very much alike. In Germany, where all the public services are overloaded with employees, there has been a great revulsion of sentiment. Even in the cases of municipal undertakings the trend of public opinion is pronounced. The following paragraph is from a recent issue of the Chief Socialist organ, tlie Berlin Vorwarts:— “In all German towns opinion is slowly going over to the sui’render by the towns of the actual running of the undertakings to companies. The object in view is the greatest possible de-bureaucratizing of the undertaking. Business men will be put in control. Such a change which existing economic circumstances make absolutely necessary, signifies for the public, of course, the tendency towards the gi*eatest possible cheapness and the fullest of economic possibilities.” The city council of Berlin recently has passed by a large majority a bill for the transference of the canal docks and warehouses to a company. In the Berliner Tagblatt, Dr. Michaels, spokesman of the Democratic members of the council, comments upon this act in the following language.— “One can say at once that such an act by a corporation in which the socialists, though not predominant, fox-in an almost decisive minority would not long since have been considered impossible and even unthinkable. And no attempt to reconcile the changed attitude of the Socialists with the fundamental principals of municipalisation and nationalisation can alter the fact that in the sphere of municipal activity, a momentous reversal has been completed. MOVEMENT TN ITALY. Without in anyway endorsing the politics of the Facisti, we present the policy of Mussolini, himself, the editor of a socialist paper before the war. Summing up bis conclusions upon this subject at a. meeting of the International Chamber of Commerce at Lome he said:— “It is my conviction that a Government which wants clearly to uplift its own people from (he afterv.ai crisis must give free play to private enterprise and forego any measure of State control or State paternalism which may perhaps, satisfy the demagogy of the Left, but as shown by experience, will, in the long run, turn out to be absolutely fatal both to the interest and the economic development, of the country. The time has come when we must take off the shoulders of the producing forces of the nations the last remainders of what was called “war harness” and examine the various economic problems with feelings undisturbed by those passions with which it, was necessary to consider them during the war. I do not believe that that complex of forces which in industry, agriculture, commerce, banking and transport, may be called by the glorious name of “Capitalism” is about to end as for a length of lime it was thought it would by several thinkers of the social extremism. One of the greatest historical experiences whicluhas unfolded itself under our own eyes has clearly demonstrated that all systems of associated economy which avoid free initiative and the individual impulse fail more or less piteously in a short lapse of time.” Other countries could be cited but enough is here shown to indicate the trend that is taking place. (Contributed by the New Zealand "Welfare League).