STATE IN BUSINESS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 21, 21 December 1932, Page 8

STATE IN BUSINESS

interference with contracts BUSINESSMAN’S • STRONG VIEW. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Dee. 21. Mr A. S. Burgess, chairman of the Associated Cliainuers of Commerce, in a statement to-day said the fact had. to be faced that more harm than good was being done by legislation interposing the State in private contracts. However pressing the situation, and however great the justification the legislators of the country considered to be theirs in making those laws it should be clearly indicated that they are of a purely temporary nature and should be cancelled at the earliest possible opportunity. Mr Burgess added that the legislation, while of some immediate benefit to certain farmers, destroyed the confidence of investors in mortgages and made it harder than ever for members of the farming community as a whole to arrange finance for carrying on. This must necessarily follow interference with an inevitable economic process.

“It is evident that the general public are looking to the Parliamentary machine to legislate into better times,” said Mr Burgess. “I wish to stress on behalf of my association that this is altogether wrong.. New Statutes for such a purpose are no use, because if these Statutes interfere further with natural economic processes they are not merely useless hut definitely injurious. 1 The most the commercial community hopes for and the most constructive proposal it can urge for the purpose of economic reconstruction is that Parliament cease to interfere with trade, industry and commerce. The business world is endeavouring to carry on, not with the help of what Parliament does, but in spite of what Parliament does. The powers of Parliament have been widely used beyond the proper sphere a.nd it is time the country' realised that individual endeavour is the mainspring of trade and prosperity. We are confronted with circumstances which can be surmounted only by a determined process of individual adjustment to conform to the reduced national and private income, an adjustment that is still going on quietly and unobstrusively in private business. This remedy may be unattractive, even painful, but it is the only remedy. “There are two things Parliament can do —stop borrowing and reduce expenditure. There are many recommendations made by the National Expenditure Commission which have not yet been adopted. Beyond that, the country needs a legislative holiday in order that we may be enabled to get on. with the job.”