ALLEGED PROFITEERING.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16884, 12 July 1920, Page 6

ALLEGED PROFITEERING.

APPEALS LODGED. The Government has lodged an appeal, on points of law, against the decision of Mr S. E. McCarthy, S.M., in dismissing the chargcs of profiteering in relation to the sales of Big Ben alarm clocks brought by the Price Investigation Tribunal against Hastie, Bull, and Pickering, Mason, Struthers and Co., E. Heece, Ltd., G.. "W. Drayton, and A. J. White, Ltd.; also charges of counselling profiteering brought against Brown and Dureau, Ltd. The D.I.C. has also lodged an appeal against its conviction for selling a child's coat at an allegedly unreasonably high price. Summarised, the grounds of this appeal are: — (1) That the conviction of the Magistrate was erorneous both in point of fact and in law. (2) That there was no evidence upon which the Magistrate could find that the goods offered for sale were so offered at a price which was unreasonably high. (3) That the evidence showed that the price at which the goods were offered for sale was not unreasonably high. _ (4) That the Magistrate misdirected himself as to the tru.e construction and meaning of section 32* of the Board of Trade Act. 1919, . inasmuch as lie held that the section required him to isolate each article sold or offered for_ sale and determine whether such article by itself and without reference to the business in which it was sold or any other circumstance wa9 sold or offered for sale at an unreasonably high price; further, that the section required the Magistrate to disregard j the fact that the article offered fori sale was part of a range of samples, and that according to the ordinary couf-se and custom of the trade it was proper to price some articles higher than others to compensate for the certainty or extreme possibility of having to sell othor articles in the range of samples at a loss or at an unprofitable price. (o) That the Magistrate wrongly held that there was no evidence that the prico of. the article, offered for sale was fixed in accordance with any trade custom or usage. On the contrary, there was uncontradicted evidence that the nrice was so fixed. (6) That on the evidence the defendant company was not rjuiltv of an offence against section 32 of." the said Act.