When the House adjourned last night I was referring to the economic condition into which the country, almost unconsciously, is drifting: that is a condition virtually of economic dictatorship. I was illustrating that by the attitude of the Minister, in introducing this Bill, towards the question of transport routes for imports under quota. He said: "We wish to have the power to regulate the routes by which these goods shall be moved." To my mind that is a most illuminating statement, because it pictures the Government, sitting there in authority, telling the traders of the country not only where they are to buy their goods, because that is implicit in the Quota Bill, but how they are to transport them. That seems to me to strike at the root of economic freedom and to impose astonishing conditions upon trade. Furthermore, as the House is well aware, our whole economic system is being bound up in the most complicated code of regulations. In the old days, when a man wanted to trade, he had to look to his production and his competitors. Otherwise, he was a reasonably free agent within very wide limits of control. Now his whole attention is on Acts of Parliament. He has to be a perfect expert, or he has to get experts to enlighten him on the whole of these regulations: tariffs, company law, and now quotas, all of which, I suggest, constitute a very cramping code. So that now it comes that a business man is spending only a portion of his time on production. A large portion of his attention and of his energies is directed to lobbying Government, studying regulations, watching to see if further restrictions are likely to be imposed, and how best he can counter them. I know one business man and the Minister knows him too—of course I cannot mention his name—who tells me that he has to spend most of his time in touch with Government conferences and Government committees. That is essential to his business, because he may lose opportunities in his business if he is not closely in touch with all the regulations and laws so rapidly changing every other day.
Is it unreasonable to suggest that, however pure and correct all that may be, it has implicit in it great dangers? That the association of the Government should be so necessary in modern business is a very short way to very great dangers I feel. I do not suggest for a moment that they are present to-day, but I do suggest that all this is fraught with danger in the future.
Moreover, under the whole of our elaborate code, businessmen are so anxious about the future that, naturally, their tendency is, where they can get the opportunity now, to make all the profits they can while conditions are favourable, and conditions naturally under our new system are specially favourable. The only weapon, and I suggest it is no weapon, that the Government have to counter this very natural avarice on the part of manufacturers is that of the Food Prices Commission. That Commission has produced, I understand, nothing of any importance yet, and I very much doubt that it will, particularly when you consider who are the contestants on each side—a certain number of self-sacrificing citizens unpaid for the work pitted against alert business brains who can afford to employ the best advisers. Is it likely that a body of that kind will ever really protect consumers as the Minister hopes they will be protected?
I am glad to see that Senator Comyn is in his place to-day because he challenged me yesterday. In fact he put into my mouth words that he wanted me to say, but skilful as he may be as a cross-examiner he cannot quite get me this time. He asked me to suggest that the tariffs imposed by Great Britain against Irish produce are fair—that is a step forward anyway that they are fair—but that while the tariffs may be fair the quotas are manifestly unjust.