PRICE CONTROL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 September 1941, Page 6

PRICE CONTROL

ACTION TAKEN IN 1 CANADA CHECKING INCREASES. APPEAL TO BUSINESS MEN. OTTAWA. September 19. The Government is determined to check the upward movement of prices. Canada’s entire food and clothing trades—all dealers, manufacturers, wholesale and retail distributors of food products, clothing and footwear, including all restaurants and eating places —are to be placed under licence. Over 200,000 food and clothing dealers will be affected. Under extended powers the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, which is the licensing authority, can presence the terms of conditions of sale of any goods or services, can fix or limit quantities that may be bought or sold and, in addition to the power to license, may suspend or cancel a licence where in the opinion of the board the licensee has failed to comply with any order or requirement of the board. In a four-point appeal to bnsiness men the Minister of Finance, the Hon Jas L. Ilsley. declares: (1) Inflation is not inevitable. It can and will be prevented. (2) We ask the public to spend less and save more. What, we need is to reduce the pressure of excessive spending. (3) We need your active co-opera-tion in keeping your costs of production down. Price stability can only be achieved if costs can be held in check. (4) We need your help in carrying out all our direct controls, not only of prices but of production and the ( use of materials as well. \ Mr Ilsley warned that the present business boom is not prosperity. “We must,” he warned, “be content to take part of cur wages and our profits in victory. We cannot afford either living or business as usual until the war is over and victory achieved.” STRIKE CONTROL. While laying the basis of effective price control the Government also moved to forestall snap strikes in war industries. By Order-in-Council strikes in war industries are now illegal until (1) The Board of Conciliation has investigated the dispute and delivered their findings to both parties; (2) Employees have notified the Minister that they contemplate a strike; (3) Vote taken thereafter under supervision of the Department of Labour; (4) The majority of the employees concerned have voted in favour of a strike. The Order-in-Council is designed to prevent strikes being called by snap decisions of minority groups, to ensure minimum interference with warproduction, to protect the rights of workers who wish to continue on the job. Cases have occurred where strikes are precipitated by groups of workers numbering as few as sixty persons although the total number affected was in the neighbourhood of three thousand. By the new regulations all employees affected must be given an opportunity to vote. The opinion of the majority will decide the issue.