LOOPHOLE FOR THE PROFITEER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2037, 4 October 1919, Page 2

LOOPHOLE FOR THE PROFITEER.

THERE is one possible development of the Board of Trade Bill which will bear careful watching, both by members of Parliament • and the public. Clause 33 provides for-a, prosecution in the event of an unreasonably high price being charged on any line of goods. The Legislatice Council has referred this clause to the Statutes Revision Committee to-enable merchants to be heard in support of their contention that the Board should take into consideration the whole of a (inn’s trade. The merchants’ contention, in other words, is that, if a trader is losing money on one line, he should be allowed to make up the loss by raising the price of another line or lines. This is what they, mean by ‘'consideration of a (inn's business as a whole.” It will be remembered that in a recent Wellington prosecution the Magistrate held that a (inn was entitled to-do iliis. The Magistrate’s ruling may, or may not, be good law, but it is bad equity, says the Wanganui Herald, and opens a loophole for every profiteer in the country to take advantage of. If the position of the business “ as a whole,” instead of as regards its individual lines, is to be considered, then the baker who is losing money on a line of fancy cakes will be permitted to raise the price -of bread to make good the loss. The grocer who is getting rid of pickles or some other line loss can take' it out of his customers by raising the price of Hour, or oatmeal, or rice, and the butcher who is selling sausages or kidneys below "cost can make up for it by clapping something on to the price of beef and mutton. That is what will be the effect of the little scheme which is now being worked by certain people, who have been quick to see the chances given them by reason of the Wellington Magistrate’s ruling. But it is not, we venture to say, what the framer of (he Board of Trade Bill had in mind, and it is certainly not what (he public expects. We hope that members, both of the House and the Legislative Council, will sit down bal'd on the proposal, and let each article in shop or warehouse (more particularly in warehouse) he sold on its own merits, and not in regard to its relation to (he business “as a whole.” The New Zealand farmers, for instance, have been very sore, and justifiably so, at (be Home Government . putting up the price of New Zealand meat to the British consumer, in order to cover the loss on its unbusinesslike purchase of American meat. The farmers rightly contend that American meat should bear its own loss, and that New Zealand meat should not be penalised in order to bolster up the American article. It is exactly this-had principle which the farmers are fighting against which certain people are now scheming to have embodied in Ibo Board of Trade Bill, vl/,., penalising the consumer on one article in order to bolster up another. K a trader finds be is losing money on one line, then the obviously business-like course for him to pursue is to handling it. But to permit the raising of the price of any one line in order to cover the loss on another-—which is what the above .proposal gives the opportune to do —is simply to play into the hands of the profiteer, and what the public wants is legislation that will put him out of action.