BIGIBUSINESS TOO BIG FOR COMFORT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 284, 27 August 1919, Page 7

BIGIBUSINESS TOO BIG FOR COMFORT

A ', PKICE TRIBUNAL FBOPOSED FOE ; . CANADA. A Price Tribunal is being proposed in f Canada to investigate the grounds for , the popular feeling that big business has become t<x> big for the comfort of people , whoso incomes are refusing to meet the present costs of living there. A Parliamentary Committee which has been giving a preliminary glance at the problem > finds evidences of unwholesome _ concentration in Canadian industrial life, and ' suggests a probe of mergers, trusts, monopolies, "and all matters affecting [ the- cost of articles used by tho public' The duties of the tribunal would not in , elude tho fixing of retail prices, but it , would combat the various influence! , which, having nothing to do with supply and demand, yet operate to hoist costs. 'I'lir ■■'.•nfi-'il "S !\v" i"!n'vcs Mint the ' activities of such a. body would meet 1 with, obstinate opposition should it rcaliv I provo I'he champion of th« ultimate ci'i> sumer, and that it therefore should bo given wide powers. "If, for instance, it: can !>o proved ' tlmt as a result of combinations botwti- ' fh'ins in tho same lines of business tl'c 1 cost to the public of tho things they produce Iwis been raised, then the price ! tribunal should have power to dissolve those combinations. If it can be shown 1 tlmt tlie watering of tho stock of suc ; firms compels them to earn more and hence to charge more for their commodities, then the price tribunal must b" empowered to reform that condition. If patient ami impartial investigation show? that, as is frequently charged, the cold storage systems of the country are being abused, and that what should bo incalculable benefit in keeping prices down ibeing perverted into an instrument for' mating pi-ices higher, thon tho en , ' storage systems should be forced to fulfil their proper function.