STATE ENTERPRISE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 September 1915, Page 4

STATE ENTERPRISE.

PRONOUNCED A FAILURE. , COMPETITION BY LOCAL BODIES. By Telegraph.—Press Association " Wellington, Last Night. "Those who predict a great increase of State enterprise after the close "of the war would do well to consider the results of such an attempt by the West Australian and New South Wales State Parliaments," remarked Mr. T. 8. Weston, president of the New Zealand Employers' Federation, in his address at the annual meeting of that society to-day, "In Western Australia a State steamship line, State meat shops, State sawmills, and State implement works were established, and in New South Wales State brick works, and one and all have proved failures. This merely confirms the result of New Zealand's own experience in coal mining, The figures of that State institution, as supplied by the department, are not encouraging. The competition of a State enterprise which showed a loss through selling its products too cheaply was unfair, not only to its private competitors, but to the general public who had to make good its losses by increased contributions to the consolidated fund. In nearly every case the State institution did not pay the same taxation as the private institution. This fact was never made prominent in its reports, and therefore the taxpayer was blinded. The same unfair competition with private employers was creeping into existence through the powers given to municipalities to trade in connection with their public franchises. Local bodies did not pay rates or taxes, and in many cases no rents, and could borrow at low rates of interest on the security of the public rates. If they were thus encouraged to trade they had an enormous handicap in their favor over the private trader with whom they might be in competition. An additional danger, had arisen through the extension of municipal trading in the large increase, in the number of the public servants and : the sensitiveness of the councillors to the election votes of such employees. The result had shown itslf by local bodies making agreements with their employees, irrespective of the general body of employers, who were thereby placed at % disadvantage. ~. k