PRICES FOR LIQUOR

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 102, 27 October 1945, Page 8

PRICES FOR LIQUOR

EXCESSIVE, SAYS COUNSEL

"Prices for liquor are and have been in the past excessive and this was due to the monopoly conditions, to the struggle by brewers to tie houses to ensure exclusive outlets for the sale of their products, and for the same reason to the payment of large sums for the possession of licences by way of excessive goodwills or high rentals," said Mr. J. D. Willis in his final submissions to the Royal Commission on Licensing yesterday afternoon.

If the trade was to remain in private hands with a limited number of licences, then he submitted that prices must be fixed. The present control by the Price Tribunal was a special measure to meet special economic conditions arising from the war.. Mr. Wise, of the Price Tribunal, had stated that it was not the Tribunal's function to rationalise and reorganise the trade and industry, but to control prices. He had not claimed that the present system of price control had removed those anomalies that had existed since time immemorial. The Tribunal decision could not be regarded as approving as reasonable pre-war prices or margins in any trade.

On behalf of the Tribunal, Mr. Willis submitted that in the matter of price enforcement there had been regular inspections and prosecutions relating to the sale of liquor, but not beer. The eliminatioTh of 'he house "shout" had been considered when the 12-ounce handle was decided upon in the main centres. Regarding standard measures, it was not the Tribunal's function to rationalise and reorganise the economic system, and further, there had been the difficulty a3 to glasses; the probability that if measures had been standardised the larger measures would have cost more; and the unwillingness of the Tribunal to interfere with the customs of the trade. The only increase authorised to the licensed trade had been a proportion of the increased duties.

"May I suggest that it falls to this Commission to take a long term view of prices as related to the whole licensing system, while the Price Tribunal has merely been called upon to hold down increases in prices in wartime," added Mr. Willis. "It may be that, taking the long term view and the much wider evidence before it, the Commission will come to the conclusion that prices and profits have been excessive. The Commission is entitled to come to that conclusion on the evidence before it, but it does not follow that the Price Tribunal has fallen down on its job."