POLITICAL OUTLOOK

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 57, 22 July 1965, Page 6

POLITICAL OUTLOOK

A direct proposal to the Government for increasing the flow of immigrants by 3600 a year will shortly be made to the Government by a committee on which most of the major employers' organisations are represented. This will follow from the work of a committee of five, which has been working on the proposal since a meeting of 17 employing organisations some three months ago. The committee will accept the economists' view that immigration is inflationary, and will advance the view that this inflation must be countered beforehand by direct Government action — because of the supreme urgency of obtaining more workers for developing New Zealand enterprises. The alternative, the committee will suggest, will be stagnation, the curtailment of New Zealand enterprise, and recession following a brief burst of artificially high wages for the workers offering. A simple way to-offset the inflation threatened by increased immigration, it will be suggested, would be for the Government to make the neoessary capital provision. This, one source suggests, could be as much as £10,000,000 initially — but the ultimate value of the increased labour force would escalate to many times this sum. * * * Huge bulk carriers running coal from Westport to Wanganui or some other mid-North Island port may be a snbstitute for a second series of power cables under Cook Strait. The scheme, which is now being investigated by the British firm of consultants, Pryce, Cardew and Ryder, is for the complete redevelopment of Westport as a deep-water bulk-loading harhour. Japanese firms interested in the projected conversion want the West Coast coal for their own steelworks — but New Zealand planners are reported to be even more interested in one or more coal-fired power station in the North Island. Whatever happens, the return to prosperity of the West Coast could be assured — at the cost of an estimated £2,500,000 for the deepwater jetties and mechanical loaders and hoppers, plus the value of up to three large bulk coal-carrying ships. After close examination, it is understood, the experts have already discarded as too expensive the idea of producing the power on West Coast fields and sending it across the strait by cable. There is a strong argument in favour of transporting the coal by bulk, with the extra dividend of giving the West Coast a suitable outlet for its main resource. * ♦ * The idea of an AustraliaNew Zealand Government shipping line, which seemed to have died with the Iiahour Government in 1960, is very much alive agaiu with the continuation of negotiations for a limited free trade area across the Tasman. The requirements are stated authoritatively to be: „!• Two or three freighters

of medium tonnage (50006000 gross) which could carry bulk kraft paper pulp, newsprint and general cargo around the Pacific. • Two much larger bulk coal-carriers (depending on whether it is decided to proceed with the scheme for turning Westport into a deep-water bulk coal port). • A roll-on-roll-off car-carry-ing passenger liner designed to shift tourists across the Tasman. The idea here would be to offer "package" tours of six weeks to as little as a fortnight to the "average Australian', who is still providing the bulk of our tourists. It is thought that these ships, or at least some of them, can be built at the Australian works at Whyalla, and that a properly functioning free trade area will sharply increase the amount of trade available. It is known that at least one large shipping company, notably uninterested in the earlier idea, is now keenly interested. The next step may well be an announcement, from a company source, that the whole thing is "unfair to shipowners." — N.Z.C.N.A. New« Service.