The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER. 1, 1922. ELIMINATING COMPETITION.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 September 1922, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER. 1, 1922. ELIMINATING COMPETITION.

Speaking in the House on Tuesday night, Mr. H. E. Holland, discussing the price of bread, stated that one firm in New Zealand had been prepared to sell bread at fivepence halfpenny per loaf, but a ring had got to work and interfered with the firm’s credit, thereby preventing them doing so. Mr. Holland considered it should be made a criminal offence to do as the combine had done. It is generally understood that during the war period and since, the bakers have had little opportunity of making more than a reasonable profit, for the reason that their prices have been controlled by the Government. Certainly we have heard of no bakers waxing fat of late years. There are two aspects, however, from which to view Mr. Holland’s condemnation of combines. In the first place competition is regarded as the life blood of trade, so that if any arrangement is come to to eliminate competition, the public must suffer. There ar : s:veral ways in which combinations to keep up prices work, though the end in view is always the same—to keep up prices. Sometimes the manufacturers or wholesalers will only sell certain goods on condition that the retail price shall not be less than a stipulated amount. There are also cases where both the wholesale and retail traders fix prices at a certain level. As a matter of fact there are few things that ean be purchased at the present time the prices of which are not regulated in some manner. The sawmillers, flourmillers, cement, makers, etc., have found the advantage of eliminating competition as far as possible. The same sort of thing took plaee when the Board of Trade acted the farce of regulating trade. The meat and buttei- pools, the wool combine, and all similar movements are designed to create artificial trade conditions that shall not be affected by the law of demand and supply, and it is impossible to conjecture where and when the process will end. No longer ean it be said that things are worth what they fetch. It is not to be expected that the Government will take any action to cope with the new system, for the simple reason that the Government itself countenances the principle, as in the case of the wool and meat pools, whilst the Treasuryneeds every penny it can gather from the taxation of profits. Apparently no reversal to open competition ean be expected until free trade becomes general, and that is not likely to be for some years to come. With regard to the other aspect of Mr. Holland’s condemnation, he does not appear to have realised that he was using a twoedged weapon. Had he reflected for a moment on the question of cause and effect, he might have realised that it was the combination of trades unions that not only set. the bad example of direct and arbitrary action, but also initiated that dictation which recognised no will but their own. It is the irony of fate that the leader of the extreme Labor Party should advocate the treatment of combines as criminal organisations, when trades unions are the worst offenders in this respect, that can be found in the Dominion and elsewhere. Not only do they’ insist on preference to unionists, but they prevent men from working for less wages than those fixed at their instigation. Certainly they should be the last to assume an attitude of indignation at. the work of a bakers’ ring, in face of the methods adopted by Labor to keep no wages. It would b° interesting to know what Mr. Holland would do were he to change

places with those whose actions he condemns. Of course two wrongs do not make a right, yet it is certainly peculiar how one-sided a j view can be taken when the pot calls the kettle black. Labor per- . feets a system under which arti- ■ fieial wages and conditions are imposed on the community. Manufacturers and traders retaliate with combinations to regulate prices. Cause and effect, and nothing else, j Incidentally the whole community suffers. Let Mr. Holland get down to bedrock, and set about improving the labor system. Then he can very properly and consistently agitate for an improvement in the trading system.