£3000 FINE.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 November 1920, Page 5

£3OOO FINE.

PROFITEERING IN TWEEDS. WHOLESALE FIRMS MULCTED. RISE TO MEET THE FUTURE. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Judgment was given by Mr. J. S. Evans, S.M., to-day, in the cases of alleged profiteering on the part of Wellington woollen firms in the sale o£ colonial tweeds. Defendants (Bing, Harris and Co. and Robert Wilson and Co.), were charged with selling certain tweed suitings at an unreasonably high price. The Magistrate, referring to the judgment of the Full Court as to replacement values, said a trader pricing goods could 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 a fact that the price had not increased after the January rates. At the time of the sale defendants, Bing, Harris and Co., put on ,4s replacement value, based on the estimate of a future increase, not on an actual increase in the market price. Taking January, 1913, as the unit basis for comparison, the Magistrai.e expressed the increases as follows:—Capital and reserve 1 in 1913 to 9.5 in 1920; cash values of sales 1 to 1.9; gross profits 1 to 2.14 per cent., 19.48 to 21,93; overhead charges decreased from 14.19 to 10.73; net profits increased from 1 to 3.36; on paid-up capital 6.36 to 20.98 per cent; income tax from .37 to 4.28. The turnover in goods had not increased owing to shortage. Briefly, there was no increase in the volume of business, but a substantial increase in aotual profits and a reduction in overhead charges. After referring to the abnormal conditions of demand and supply during the war, and after the Magistrate held the rate of profit charged by defendants brought them within the penal clauses of the Act, and they must be convicted, The Magistrate imposed a penalty of £IOOO on each of three charges against Bing, Harris and Co., and £2OO on each of two charges against Wilson and Co. A third charge against Wilson and Co. was dismissed.