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The nearer draws the time for the State Parliament to | meet, the more vehement become the political agents of | the great Trusts. Last week they sought from the | Premier a declaration that the Government would as early | as possible either close down or sell the State Trading | Concerns. This demand was made by a deputation | purporting to represent the Perth Chamber of Commerce. | Its inspiration, however, came from the intriguings of | certain gentlemen who have been busily employed for some | time past in "negotiating" business deals for certain | powerful monopolies.
|It is a curious and a revelatory fact that the first | definite win-the-war action of R R Pilkington was to | lead an assault on the principles of collective | ownership. The war which the Perth Irvine is out to | wage is thus early discovered to be the attack which | capitalism is developing against any and every influence | which checks or threatens to check its predatory | programme.
| In his speech Pilkington said the feeling was that
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What he means is they are
| prejudicial to the expansive projects of Big Business.
| Not only do the State Trading in activities set a
| standard on something like a decent social basis, but
| they postulate an organisation of industry more or less
| immune from the clutch of capitalism.
All over the work publicists are discussing the | post-war economic position. It presents itself as not only a | situation involving the relative status of the great | commercial nations, but as an arena of contest between | systems of capitalist-activity themselves. And it is | notorious that the preparations for the titanic trade | struggle are now in train.
|The point was put forward last week that so long as | the State conducted trading operations its influence | must necessarily be against private individuals. By | implication this point is made to mean it is detrimental | to the popular weal and a menace to progress. But the | truth lies the other way. In what respect is it | detrimental to the farmers of Western Australia to have | competition in connection with the supply of | agricultural implements? Upon what ground is it held | that only for the establishment of the State works | ploughs and harvesters would be sold at a lower rate in | Perth to-day than is the case?
| The argument cannot be sustained. It is a noteworthy
| fact that the State has been obliged to establish
| manufacturing and other agencies under its direct
| auspices, not to kill competition, but to restore it.
| The Tory Minister for Works, W J George
Competition has given place everywhere to the | dominion of the Trust. More or less perfectly organised | it to-day manipulates the economic processes of society. | The aftermath of the war, therefore, is not to be a | trade struggle between nations, but a colossal conflict | between certain great aggregations of capital massed | under the one control, and insinuating itself in the | public life as though it were the nation itself.
|Thus the period between now and the cessation of war | in Europe is an epoch of preparation by the great Trusts | for the stupendous campaigns ahead of them. That is why | all manner of subtle and direct attacks have been | launched against Unionism. For Unionism is an economic | antagonist in the place where the Trust is weakest, ie | government of labor in production. It was to restore to | Big Business its supremacy in regard to the | determination of conditions of employment that the | recent great upheaval was contrived.
|Now, the next step in the game is to remove the | possibility of political danger. So long as the public | policy is amenable to the State or National organisation | of industry outside the orbit of capitalist-corporations, | the Trusts push forward into an uncertain | future. Therefore they propose a clean sweep of all the | forms of non-capitalist directed industry. The fact | that the State in its undertakings employs capitalist | money is beside the point. Control of every process | from the first steps in production to the last parcel | over the counter is an essential in the trustified | area.
| Thus we have the spectacle in Western Australia of
| the Government being required to intimate to the Chamber
| of Commerce its readiness to abandon
And the primary condition of exploitation abroad is
| monopoly at home. These Westralian dummies of the great
| Eastern capitalists
Pilkington would have the world believe private | enterprise is the most perfect of all the methods that a | country could employ. But if you were to ask this | lawyer-exponent of the policy of Big Business why he | doesn't rely on private enterprise to drive the Germans | out of business, he would probably find it difficult to | reply. Perhaps we should be treated to a lengthy | disquisition on how certain things are different. None | the less it asserts itself as a conspicuous feature of | modern statecraft that the policy Pilkington would have | Lefroy adopt is one every other front rank nation is | busy discarding.
|And the truth is, it needs discarding in the | Commonwealth if Australia is to be saved an aftermath of | social chaos. Instead of lessening the area of State | control we need to increase it. We need to increase it | in order to lessen the ambit of monopoly-control. If | the country is to escape the perpetual domination of the | Trusts it must widen the economic authority of the | State. To do as Pilkington asks is to leave ourselves | at the mercy of the profit-graspers.
|That such a consummation is a deliberately sought | project of the influences moving the Chamber of Commerce | cannot be gainsaid. The Associated Banks are already | chafing under the tremendous progress of the | Commonwealth institution. They perceive in this arsenal | of the nation's credit, a machine capable of finding | capital for any undertaking decided on by the country. | But it is realised that so long as the State and Federal | trading concerns are limited as now, or reduced from | what they are, it will be no great difficulty for Big | Business to economically isolate the publicly organised | industries and thus shut them down ultimately.
|This policy is part of the profit-seeking war which | the Chipping, Coal, Sugar, Banking, Metal, Timber and a | few other monopolies in Australia are planning to wage. | Its inspiration emanates from the definite establishment | of the American Meat Hog in the Commonwealth. Part of | the conspiracy to wrest Wyndham from the State is | involved in the more general claim put forward last | week. The demand for the shutting down of the State | Implement Works is but a straw which denotes the way the | whirlwind is to blow.
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