HIGH PRICES.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 August 1920, Page 4

HIGH PRICES.

REAL CAUSE EXPLAINED. OBJECTIONS TO PRESENT A3T, By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. A Dominion deputation of wholesale and retail traders waited upon the Prime Minister and the Minister of Industries and Commerce this afternoon to request an amendment to the Board of Trade Act. Mr. Wyles said the law as it stood not only prevented the carrying on of trade according to long-estaElished usages and customs, but cast a suspicion on the traders. Section 32 of the Board of •Trade Act was incapable of exact defl- i nition. There should be a deflation which was capable of being fully -Understood, so that traders might know whether they were within the law or not. It was unfair that the stigma of profiteering should be fastened on the whole of ,the traders because there were a few isolated cases. If the Act had not teen brought into operation, or if it were repealed, not one honest trader vould en-, deavor to take advantage of it. The Government should face the position, and explain that high prices were due to economic causes. *•• * , The Prime Minister-agreed thai pro ' fiteering was merely one cause' of high prices. The most important causes were reduced production, increased demand, shortage of supplies, and high wages. It had become the business of the Government to show the; people that profiteering was not the sols cause'of high prices, and that if profiteering «- • isted it would be punished. tPhe Government was anxious to keep down the cost of living to the consumer. It was fipxious, at the same time, to avoid being harsh or unjust to a traitor. He could not recollect ithat at <tny stage the Government'had discriminated be-t' tween retailer and wholesaler.' The solution of the cost of living problem was to he found largely in an in' crease of production. 1 He thai the farmer had been doing very well, but other sections of the community qhould not forget that practically everything the farmer required in his business had. more than doubled ii> price in recent f years. He did not think ray injustice had ariaen from the adtainletrfction of clause 24, requiring the supplying of information about businesses. The prini cipal difficulty that had arisen was in regard to a. definition of "an unreason- ; able profit" under clause 32. Tho depu- / tation was asking that provision should be made for replacement.. This Very point had been discussed when the Bill was before a committee of Parliament,• and a statement had been made by experts that if profits were allowed to be based on their replacement, value, tha Government might as well) leave the legislation alone, since it wuld be impossible to secure a conviction in any case. • . . The Government would take into consideration all the arguments that had - been advanced by the deputation. He believed that'if the Board of Trade Act was amended during the present SflMlon it would ibe made a better Act train the point of view of both traders and conn sumers.