GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 9 January 1931, Page 7

GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE

WITH PRIVATE ENTERPRISE COMMENT IN CHRISTCHURCH (By Telegraph—Special to “The Mail") CHRISTCHURCH, Bth January. Alarm at the belief that the Government shows a disposition to interfere in private enterprise by placing restrictions on the carriage of passengers and goods by motor transport companies in districts where there are adequate railway facilities was expressed by several citizens to-day, when commenting on the statement made by the Acting-Prime Minister to a deputation which waited on him concerning the suspension of work on the Gisborne-Waikokopu line. _ “I think everybody will agree in the main with the statement of the ActingPrime Minister with regard to railways,” said Mr W. Machin, vice-president of the New Zealand Associated Chambers of Commerce. “It is quite impossible for New Zealand to go on pouring out money on work which cannot be productive within a reasonable timo while her national income is so shrunken. The Government lias done several courageous things already and the country is looking to it to be even more drastic and courageous, and probably on this question of railways nothing would please the whole country more than that the Gov ernment should carry out the recent Commission’s recommendations to put them under non-political control. There is a suggestion in Mr Ransom’s speech that he will try to cure the present evil and inelastic political control by introducing a further evil of Government restriction of competition. In this case it is certain that the two evils will not produce a benefit. There are plenty of ways in which a commercial railway undertaking free from political direction and influence could meet its competition on commercial lines, and now seems to be the time to give it its freedom rather than to shackle its competitor.”