PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. The Times. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1919. PRICES AND PRODUCTION

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 487, 5 December 1919, Page 2

PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

The Times. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1919. PRICES AND PRODUCTION

"We nothing extenuate, nor tut down auaht in malice."

PROFITEERING bein&; anathema for the moment, the people rise up in a stare of indignation when cases disclosing abnormal profits arc cited. We hrtVe drastic legislation on the Statute Book, which is intended to restrict price-., but it is questionable whether or not this legislation will, in the long run. reduce the cost of "living. When prices reach very high figures, enterprising people are tempted, by that gambling instinct which is more or less pronounced in every man and woman, to produce large quantities of the high-priced articles. The inevitable result is that the supply then exceeds the demand, causing a glut on 'the market and so reducing prices. Even if "rings" exist they cannot hold stocks indefinitely, they heing subject to the laws of supply and demand like everyone else. Moreover, when an article becomes so scarce and expensive that it is beyond the purchasing power of the people, some genius discovers a suitable substitute, and so the economic laws operate throughout. Free and full competition, without restrictions of any kind is likely to be better in the last analysis than the result-' secured by tampering with economic laws over which, after all, we can exorcise little effective control