PRICE CONTROL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 281, 27 November 1941, Page 12

PRICE CONTROL

CANADIAN EFFORT

"WAR" AGAINST INFLATION

(0.C.) OTTAWA, November 21. Canada has opened the battle against inflation. Donald Gordon, recently appointed chairman of the Wartime Prices Board, when addressing administrators and key men of the Price Ceiling Scheme, likened the gathering to members of the general staff commanding an army consisting of every citizen of Canada.

~ About to go into action against the disaster of inflation which is imminently threatening this country, Mr. Gordon submitted a proposed plan of action. "The objective," he said, "has been very clearly defined. It is this—that no further increase in prices can be permitted, and from December 1 forward the price level must be returned to and maintained at the level ruling between September 15 and October

"There is no equivocation in that statement. At no time has the Government even suggested that some increase may be permitted or some later late selected for the basic period. Those of us who have given careful study to this problem are absolutely convinced that no other method of_ approach is even worth trying. We are convinced that the battle lines are drawn and that every foot of ground given awav is lost beyond recovery. Every effort to control runaway inflation'in past wars or in other countries has failed. Four reasons why the general price ceiling was adopted were outlined in a preliminary statement of policy distributed at the gathering. The Government decided, the statement says, against bringing prices under control one by one or group by group and in favour of imposing restriction over all simultaneously. It was a decision in favour of action so comprehensive as to bring under control retail as well as wholesale prices; prices of finished goods as well as prices of raw materials, including farm products; prices charged for the more important services, as well as the price of goods and with due safeguards of rates of remuneration by way of salaries or wages.

It was stated that such a price ceiling was the quickest measure to apply and speed was imperative; that action on all prices at once was more just, for one man's selling price was another man's costs; that administrative problems of the price ceiling were great; they were, on closer inspection, fewer and less difficult than those of dealing with separate prices in turn. The price ceiling started from an actual relationship of prices as of a certain period, and was more realistic and close to facts than an attempt to build up an arbitrary scale of minimum prices.