N.Z. Mentioned In Glass Investigations

Chronicle (Levin), 29 December 1949, Page 5

N.Z. Mentioned In Glass Investigations

O^TAWA, Dec. 28. The Justice Department has released a report by Mr F. A. McGregor, Commissioner ' of the Combines Investigation Act, ivhich charged that a combine of glass jobbers existed in the' provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Tliet investigation was eoneerned with the distribution and sale of flat glass. The report contained long excerpts of correspondence between Pilkington Brothers, of England and their Canadian subsidiary, Pilkington Brothers (Canada) Ltd. with regard to glass prices and marketing methods. The report contained anexchange of cables in 1937, in one of | which the Canadian subsidiary was purported to have said H. S. Wherrett, ot the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, thought American manufacturers should be alloived to increase the sale to New Zealand, to which Pilkington Brothers of England were stated to have replied: "As regards New Zealand, we have always regarded this as pre-emiu-entlv a British market and frankly we should not view lightly an arrangement which would faeilitate the sale of American glass to buyers in that market. We fully appreciate. the American manufacturers' point of view that they have a quota in the group market and that, with Australian prohibition, they cannot sell their footage, but whether thev should make up these saies in the British Empire only, is another point ' altogether, 5-5-