Vegetable Prices

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23810, 2 December 1942, Page 2

Vegetable Prices

Since there can have been no doubt of the meaning of the Vegetable Price Orders issued by the Price Investigation Tribunal and no doubt, either, that the tribunal intended them to be obeyed, the public must have been astonished by the statement in which Mr E. Guthrie, president of the Christchurch Fruitbuyers’ Association, reviewed recent market and retail trade practice. The orders fix certain wholesale and retail price limits. These have not been observed. Retailers have competed for vegetables at higher prices; thus the wholesale maximum has been exceeded. They have then charged prices to show a profit, and in doing so have exceeded the retail maximum. Mr Guthrie’s suggestion that it “ appeared that “ the tribunal was going to overlook “ breaches ” would be a curious one if there were official foundation for it; but the official comment makes it even more curious by denying it any foundation. The district officer of the Department of Industries and Commerce, who acts for the tribunal, says that “ numerous “ warnings ” were given against over-bidding the wholesale price limits. If retailers continued to buy and sell at illegal prices, then, it may be supposed that they justified themselves, and thought themselves safe, because of the supposed “ ridiculousness ” of the orders, because the growers had “ failed in “ their duty ” when they did nothing ti. have the orders altered, and because the wholesale trade accepted their bids. Mr Guthrie’s defence included all these points. They are worth mentioning because they illustrate a tendency which greatly increases the difficulty of administering controls, and may even defeat them. These arc, of course, often inconvenient and vexatious;

they will nearly as often seem irrational to those whose business they impede. Sometimes they may be. But it cannot be too strongly insisted that, whatever action may be taken to modify control .provisions, they should be strictly obeyed while they are in force. The harm that can be done by the uneven pressure of faulty controls is much less than the harm that is certainly done by defying or evading them. When the association faced the fact, last week, that the tribunal would not “ over- “ look breaches,” it resolved that no member should buy vegetables at prices above those fixed. No other decision was possible, and no other should have regulated trade practice previously. But the tribunal will need to watch with great care, not only the observance of price orders, but market conditions as they develop under it. If vegetables are scarce, fixed prices will not necessarily distribute them fairly. If they are plentiful, fixed prices may distribute them much less fairly than free competition would.