BOSTON TEA PARTY1955 STYLE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27641, 23 April 1955, Page 8

BOSTON TEA PARTY1955 STYLE

The correspondence columns of a metropolitan fiewspaper recently carried this interesting letter: “It has been reported in the Press that a chain of 420 grocery stores in Britain has cut the price of tea by 4d per lb in recognition of the housewives’ refusal to buy tea until the price came down. Surely the women of New Zealand can follow the lead of the British housewife.” Surely they can! And with the same, inevitable result ... a fall i& price. Here is just another example of the “checks and balances” of a free, competitive, private enterprise system. And no form of control, no State action, no matter how well intejntioned can have the same effect in keeping prices down. Let grower, manufacturer or distributor fix the price of a commodity beyond what the ultimate consumer considers a reasonable limit and consumption will either be cut down or cut out all together. It’s as simple as that . . . and no system of "price control” can operate so effectively or economically, as this method of “letting prices find their own level.” Issued in the interests of all sections of the community by the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand.—P.B.A.