“MEANINGLESS” MEASURES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31289, 8 February 1967, Page 3

“MEANINGLESS” MEASURES

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Feb. 7.

The “standard helping” is a meaningless measure of quantity, the president of the National Council of Women, Mrs L. W. Tiller, of Wellington, told a Legal Research Foundation symposium in Auckland last night.

Mrs Tiller said every housewife was familiar with prepacked or tinned foods that claimed to serve four. “But have you ever tried them?” she asked. The answer was to label all prepacked goods with the

weight or quantity enclosed. “This should be a standard trade practice in supermarkets,” said Mrs Tiller. “We all know of the packages that are reduced in price and in size—and it turns out you are getting less for your money." Price Variation

Another question the housewife would like answered was whether a storekeeper had an obligation to sell an article at the marked price. “I have gone into my grocer to buy some article and been told that the marked price is the old price, and that I must pay 3d more for it,” said Mrs Tiller. “Apparently there is no legal obligation to sell at the marked price. “I have inquired about this and the philosophy apparently is that the retailer gains on

a rising market and loses on a falling market, so that it halanrpc ” Mrs Tiller said few New Zealand women knew how much they were paying for things in supermarkets, and how much prices were rising. A major problem for many families, and particularly those of new arrivals in the country, was over-commit-ment on hire purchase.

The council had carried out a preliminary survey in Wellington—“ There was one family which had got itself into a muddle and had wall-to-wall carpet in the bathroom”—but there has to be some limit to the inquiries that could be made about a person’s ability to pay. Dr. W. B. Sutch, the former Secretary of Industries and Commerce, said the law had not caught up with what was going on particularly in the field of hire purchase. “Hire purchase in this country has been subject to a great deal of experiment,” he said, “and some of the experiment has been bad for consumers.”

The law on packaging and labelling was also due for revision with the advent of the supermarket and so much prepackaging. The Secretary of Justice (Mr J. L. Robson) said the symposium had shown general agreement that the law relating to' hire purchase badly needed attention. But many groups were entitled to be heard in any revision, including interested, intelligent laymen. He added: “There is obviously dissatisfaction with the way things are today.”