“POLITICAL INTERFERENCE”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 January 1931, Page 4

“POLITICAL INTERFERENCE”

WEARISOME RESTRICTIONS Moved by the serious state of tlie times and the economic plight of the country, Sir Ernest Bonn discusses in “Account Rendered (1900-1930),” tlie vast ramifications of modern “social reform” politics, “which have crippled the individual by official tutelage and hampered trade by interminable and wearisome restrictions.” “What I have attempted to do,” lie said in an interview with the “Observer,’V‘is to estimate tbc moral and material cost of Hie new ideas expressed in the political activities of Great Britain during the last 30 years. One frequently hears that there is nothing to choose between the political parties —that one is as bad as another, that one costs as much as another- —and there is a great deal of truth in that suggestion. If you could summarise the public opinion of all shades it would bo seen that it is founded upon a vague suspicion that something which _is yariAiieKr no n. . mnitallSlTl.

ousiy described ns a system, ccipiuiUMii, private enterprise, laissez faire, has failed to give us what we want, and that therefore some sort of legislation is necessary to put things right-. ■ Having got so far, public opinion begins to divide: Some people favur pensions, others tariffs, and others again -great development scheme:;, but all of them unite on the common ground that political action of one kind or another _ is 'necessary, or advisable, or beneficial. Now, I believe there is a fundamental fallacy in this way of thinking, which ! suggest, lias developed in the last 30 years. Political interference works in. two ways: First of all it takes from the pockets of tlie people tbc money which, if left there, would multiply and fructify; and then it operates to slop activities in all directions by rules and regulations, which also prevent the natural growth, such as characterised the nineteenth century.”