"A MARE'S NEST."

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1920, Page 6

"A MARE'S NEST."

ALLEGED PROFITEERING. "GO TO THE BOARD AND GET FACTS." An alleged case of profiteering in tweed prices, which has recently been going the rounds of the Press, was rtferred to the Board of Trade by a Wellington Times representative. It has been repeatedly stated that a young woman employed in a certain woollen mill purchased from the manager tweed at 7s 6d a yard. Upon making up the costume, however, she found she was about half a yard short of 'the material required; and on requesting more tweed from the mill manager, she was informed that a certain drapery firm had bought the whole stock. She applied to the draper concerned, and was charged for the same cloth 18s per yard. The Times representative was informed that at the end of last year this statement wag made to the Board of Trade by a correspondent who signed himself, "Father of a Deceased Soldier." Although the board does not \isually take notice of anonymous communications, the facts were so specifically stated in this case that an inquiry was made. The board found that the mill named had not delivered a yard of tweed to the drapery firm named since 1910. The boai'd considers that it is extraordinary that such a statement should continue to be nume public through the medium of the Press, when it has been publicly notified that all complaints of profiteering should be made either direct to the board itself or to the local tribunals recently set up in each of the four big centres. "The public can rest asrired," the pressman was informed, "that ' the case under consideration is a mare's nest. But it keeps cropping up again and again, starting first in one paper, then in another, and so going the rounds. The man in the street," it was stated, "always asks what the board is doing; but, why does he not go to the board and get the facts'"