PROFITEERING IN TWEEDS

Otaki Mail, Volume XXIII, 1 December 1920, Page 3

PROFITEERING IN TWEEDS

£3400 IN FINES. The reserved judgments regarding tho six charges of profiteering on the sale of tweeds laid by the Board of Trade against the wholesale firms of Bing, Harris' and Co., Ltd., and Robert Wilson aud Co., were given by Mr J. S. Evans. S.M., at Wellington on Monday. - .i? The charge against Bing, Harris and Co. were of selling 7J yards of suiting to Gotthard Krebs at lbs 6d per yard; to ,T. T. Lewis, Ltd., 12 yards of suiting at 11s fid per yard; to Kitto and Son. 7j yards at 22s tid per yard; which prices were considered to have returned unreasonable rates of profit. Robert Wilson was charged with selling to James Smith, Ltd., nine yards of suiting at 32s per yard; to Gotthard Krebs, 3rf yards of Mosgiel suiting at 22s fid per yard; to M. Greenfield, 61 yards of Mosgiel suiting at 17s fid per yard. The magistrate, referring to the judgment of the Full Court as to replacement values, said that a trader pricing goods count not advance the price on the current market rate to meet a possible rise in the future. There was no evidence of any actual rise after January. The magistrate found as the fact that the price had not increased after January, that the defendants, Bing, Harris, had put on 44s replacement value, and based rue WtimaFe of a ferfp? increase, not on the actual increase of the market price. After referring To the abnormal conditions of demand and supply during the war and after, the magistrate held that the rate of profit charged defendants brought them within the penal clauses of the Act, and they must be convicted. . The 'magistrate imposed a penalty ol £IOOO each on three charges against Bing, Harris, and £2OO each on two charges against Wilson and Co. A third charge against Wilson and Co. was dismissed.