THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1907. REGULATING PRICES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8537, 18 September 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1907. REGULATING PRICES.

In a thoughtful article the New Zealand Herald, discussing different questions raised by the proposal to abolish the duty, on flour, remarks that the expressed intention of the Premier to introduce legislation having for its purpose the State-regulat- | ing o? the price of flour and bread may be approved by the unthinking? but cannot be carried out without invoking an endless chain of troubles and difficulties and inconsistencies. ! That wheat-growing should be reasonably protected is an obvious necessity, if we intend to keep the ordinary food-supplying of our community in our own hands; that the Government should be empowered to suspend the duty on any food stuff in time of extraordinary prices is equally necessary to any scheme of intelligent public administration; but beyond this there cannot be any safe State interference with the internal supply and demand. A sliding scale duty is in the nature of things unworkable, as every importer knows. For a Government in a country like this, where there is such general prosperity and such fve?. opportunity for private enterprise, to attempt to arbitrarily fix the price at which a loaf of bread shall be sold is really quixotic. It is one of tlie peculiarities of the age to cry "trust" and to perceive iniquitous "combines" in every direction, but it is incontestable that no particular effort is being ;r.ade to employ co-operative methods in defence of the consumers, who are alleged to be so grievously plundered. Yet co-operation is a method common and popular among all British peoples, where occasion for resort thereto has occurred, and is quite j within the ordinary rights of any group of consumers who feel themselves unjustly treated by suppliers. Yet the Government talks of regulat-

ing prices by Act of Parliament and > by offic&bproclamation when there.ia no proof whatever that prices are not regulating themselves, and makes no attempt whatever, in the case of bread, to redress the alleged grievances by a legitimate and e&tablished form of special competition. The truth is that competition is usually quite keen enough and if bread-prices are to be regulated, why not' the prices of,, ;meat, milk,' fish, coal, cahdles and > a thousand other commodities. : Carried to its logical conclusion, the process must break down by its own weight. ' The Abritration Court fixes wages, and the wages have been paid because the increases can be charged against the customer. But if the Arbitration Court is to fix wages and the Government to fix selling prices, leaving the o-nployer to find the capital and to take the risks, does anybody imagine that industry can continue unchecked? It is quite possible that, wheji the Premier comes to consider what is involved, he will hesitate to pursue the dangerous course he indicates. But even so, suggestions of peremptory legislative interference with trade and industry do great harm, and ought to be scrupulously avoided by responsible statesmen.