I should just like to make a comment on what the Minister said. He told us in some detail about how amused he was on the one hand and how puzzled on the other, without actually answering my queries as to why private enterprise is not self-lubricating and why private enterprise was incapable of finding anything for itself. Surely the perfect system is a system whereby, if a thing is worthwhile from the profit point of view, it will make a profit and can be launched? Why does the welfare state have to help private industrialists? The Minister said he was puzzled and amused but he did not tell us why the merchant banks, the private enterprise financiers, cannot find money. He did not tell us why it is necessary to charge farmers a fairly sharp rate of interest and why they cannot avail of the free unredeemable interest-free grants given to industrialists.
The Minister felt he was answering my point on that by simply saying that a loan is a different thing from a grant. I would ask him why there are two different things applied here, one to farmers and one to industrialists. Why is it the farmer has to struggle along, as a small industry if you like on his farm and, not alone has to pay back anything he gets by way of loan but has to pay a fairly sharp rate of interest, while the industrialist, and some of those come in from outside, gets an interest-free unredeemable grant? Why is there the different basis and why is private enterprise not self-lubricating and self-propelling? Why is it so crippled and why does it require those crutches? Why does it have to get hand-outs from the welfare state?
