ARTIFICIAL PRICES.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 225, 22 September 1924, Page 7

ARTIFICIAL PRICES.

| DEALING WITH PROFITEERS. BRITAIN'S LOOSENED LAW. 'I in tie good old days when Governments considered the "welfare of "the j lower and middling classes of men'" it was a crime against the coimiiunitv to increase artificially the prices oi I commodities. In these days when the I community is supposed to be much more • civilised, it is no offence for men to ■ add to their riches by exploiting the i food supplies of the people. The abolition of the common and r Statute laws against "forestaliers."' 1 "mgrossers," and "regraters," curiously 1 enough, coincided with the accession 1 to political power of the manufacturing | and commercial classes. It was in 1 1545. when Liberalism and Free Trade ■ gained the ascendancy in England, that ' the last remnant of the protection which ; the law afforded the masses of th* | people was destroyed. Since then any man or combination \ of men, writes A. Barrister, in the London "Daily Mail,"" have become ; legally entitled to "corner*' essential ' lood supplies-and enrich themselves at . the expense of the multitude. The extent to which this ha* been done " any housekeeper knows to .li»r cost. As recently as 1800, a profiteer named > Waddingtou, was fined £500 and sen- ' fenced to a month's imprisonment and , to be imprisoned until the fine was " c paid, for making a corner in hops. . He was a Kentish hopgrower and made , it his business to go to Worchester and induce growers in that county to withj hold their stocks of hops frq« the mart ket until the price rose from £11 a cwt.. , which it then was, to £20 a cwt. - To accomplish his project he entered . into a series of "forward"' contract? _ and set afloat false rumours as to the j shortage of hops. c Great efforts were made by the lawj vers of the day to save Waddington. f One argument addressed to the judges . was that it would interfere with free- - dom of trade to convict the offender. I The answer of one of the court to s this was: "How can it be requisite to B support the freedom of trade that one c man shall be permitted for his own private emolument to enhance the price ,_ of the necessaries of life, and thereby " possibly prevent a large portion of His r Majesty's subjects from purchasing c those necessaries at all? Freedom of c trade is one thing: the abuse of that .. freedom is another." t =_____=__=____-_