DEBATE IN THE HOUSE

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1921, Page 5

DEBATE IN THE HOUSE

( MR. MASTER'S RETURNS TO ATTACK. CRITICISM OF THE REPORT. Wellington, Last Night. In. the House to-day the Hon. E. P. Lee, Minister of Trade and Industries., ■laid on the table the; report of Mr. Justice Sim, who was appointed to inquire into the charges of improper trading on the part of certain cement companies, recently made by Mr. R. Masters, member for Stratford. He read the report to the House, and concluded by saying that there had been a full inquiry and not one charge had been proved. He could not feel that the member for Stratford had the interests of the public at heart when he made the charges. It would have been better for him to have made inquiries before making the charges. There had been a slight political advantage, but the day of reckoning had come. « Mr. T. M. Wilford (Leader of the Opposition) protested that the bringing down of the report at that hour might gag members, unless they allowed the debate to continue after the adjournment. i he order of reference had been drawn up without the member concerned being consulted, quite contrary to all practice in such matters. It was unBritish. unfair and typical of the whole proceedings. On top of that had come the issuing of a pamphlet giving the evidence of the chairman of the Board of Trade at the commission, but without' the cross-examination. That was most unfair. The order of reference did not deal with matters raised by Mr. Masters, but the Judge had been asked to report on prices never mentioned by Mr. Masters. The whole report, therefore, was aj? a house built on sand. VIEW OF THE VERDICT. Why had the Minister right throughout been so solicitous on behalf of the companies? Mr. Wilford quoted the remark of the Judge that the agreement was in restraint of trade, qualified by the statement that it did not act to the detriment of the public, so long as consumers could get all the cement they wanted at a reasonable price. Further, the commissioner said it was not in the interests of the public that the companies should be forced to engage in cutthroat competition, and the agreement was designed to prevent that. In reality that was just exactly what Mr. Masters had said, except that the Judge had put in the word cut-throat. As an ol<l member of the legal profession he claimed that the \ report showed that the Judge had said to himself that he could not find under the order of reference for Mr. Masters, but that he was not going to land Mr. Masters with the costs. Mr. Masters said he had no doubt the cement companies were pleased with the report, but he did not think the public would be, when they found they found they had to pay £ 15,000 to the cement companies for nothing. The Minister in charge of the Board of Trade (Mr. Lee) had been very solicitous in defending the companies; the whole attitude of the Board of Trade had been one of solicitude for the companies “and the public be damned.” Tne Minister had said he did not hold any shares himself, but he (Mr. Masters) wondered when the Minister wa,s speaking whether lie was speaking on behalf of four members and their immediate relatives on the Government side of the House, who held 124,000 shares out of a total of 600.000 shares in Wilson’s Portland Cement Company. Mr. Massey: “Who are they?” REFORM SHAREHOLDERS.

Mr. Masters: “Sir R. Heaton Rhodes 32,157 shares, Sir William Herries 1509, Mr. H. M. Campbell (M.P. for Hawke’s Bay) 847, Mr. K. S. Williams (M.P. for Bay of Plenty) and his family 90.000.” He wondered why the Minister was so solicitous, not on behalf of the people of New Zealand, but of the cement company of which his immediate friends are such big shareholders. Mr. ‘Lee: “I have no knowledge of these shares.”

Mr. Masters , continuing, said the Minister had fixed the order of reference under which he himself would be tried and the Judge said he had no power to alter that.

Mr. Lee: “Your counsel said he was perfectly satisfied.” Mr. Masters retorted: “He could not be otherwise, as he could get nothing better.” Coming to the question of the,rise in the price of cement, Mr. Masters said he maintained previously, and in face of the report he maintained now, that there was nothing to justify the rise of 36/- in December. The Board of Trade and the Golden Bay Company were the only ones who favored that rise, and it was made'more because of tjte financial position of the Golden Bay Company than because of increased cost of production. He proceeded to discuss the financial position of the Golden Bay Comphny, with a view to showing' that the company was not in a bankrupt condition, that in fact it was in a sound position. The chairman of the Board of Trade said the increase was given to help the company. The increase given to Wilson’s Company was said to have been given to enable the company to re-open the Warkwortli works, but that increase was given last December and the Warkworth works had not opened yet. The whole thing amounted to a grave scandal and a gross waste of public money. FIXING THE PRICE.

Coming to the method by which the increases were made he said that when Mr. Lee came into office ho said no increases would be allowed to be passed on to the public until full reasons were given to the board and then the whole matter would bo decided on the evidence. But the enairman of the Board of Trade admitted he had not asked Wilson’s to produce their cost of production when the increase was macle. The increase was made in December, but no papers were seen by the Chairman until February, or six weeks after he sanctioned the increase. The speaker then proceeded to analyse the balance-sheets of the company concerned, in which he maintained that unfair allowances were made to them by the Board of Ti-ade in the matter of overhead charges, which thing showed hopeless incompetency on the "part of the Board of Trade. The public had never been considered at all and he could not help contrasting the treatment meted out to these big companies with the board’s action in prose-. euting small traders. The court found that these transactions were in restraint of trade, but it was not an illegal restraint. The mere fact that cement was not in the schedule of the Commercial Tiaists Act, 1910, was not going to satisfy the people as to what had been happening, and in speaking to the people he was appealing to a higher

court than that presided over by Mr. Justice Shn.

The Hon., C. J. Parr traversed the circumetances whidh led up to the commis sion and the conduct of the inquiry, which lasted over six days, and as a result Mr. Justice Sim had found wholly against Mr. Masters. No one was more highly respected or sincerely trusted than Mr. Justice Sim, yet all that Mr. Masters could now say was that Mr. Justice Sim was wrong, but the public would form its own opinion on the point. The House and the country would congratulate the Minister on the verdict which the Judge had found. Mr, Masters had evidently not weighed his words and, he hoped he’would now realise there was a difference between the cool atmosphere of a Royal Commission and the heated air of a public meeting. The debate was continued by Mr. H. Atmore (Nelson), who defended Mr. Masters, until interrupted by the 5.30 p.m. adjournment.