The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1936. THE PROFITEERING BILL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 256, 25 July 1936, Page 8

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1936. THE PROFITEERING BILL

The provisions of the Prevention of Profiteering Bill do little to remove the earlier impression that it will be chiefly valuable as a political gesture. With its object, as .stated by the Minister of Industries and Commerce, there can be no quarrel. That is, To protect the consuming public against unfair and unreasonable increases in prices.”’ Its efficacy to achieve any other object than the further strait-jacketing of enterprise is extremely doubtful. Prices rifling on June 1 are given the special status of “basic prices”—the effort to make a saint’s day of November 27 seems to have been abandoned —and the offence of profiteering will be selling or offering for sale at a price that exceeds the basic price “by an unreasonable amount,” services as well as goods being included. The Act is to be administered by one or more Judicial Tribunals for the Prevention of Profiteering, each to consist of a stipendiary magistrate only. Prosecution may be brought at any time within three years after the commission of the alleged offence, and, although persons charged are to be allowed to be represented by counsel, the ordinary rules of evidence are not to apply. Moreover, a tribunal’s decision is to be final. One man’s opinion could put an industry in fetters. The relevant factors in considering whether a price charged is higher than the basic price by “an unreasonable amount” are. to be the extent by which the expenses of the defendant, have been directly or indirectly increased since June 1 by the operation, of any amendment to industrial legislation, and the extent by which his business has been, or is likely to be, increased ,by a greater public demand due to higher purchasing power. This is gloriously vague. One man is to decide; he may decide on what he thinks is likely to happen; and there is to be no appeal from his decision. Well, well. Nobody need be afraid! The whole Bill is so broadly drawn, and tlie procedure of its operation so inexactly stated, that it is likely to be largely a dead letter. No doubt it will have some deterrent effect, which may be valuable —which would be very valuable if profiteering were a common practice in this country; but it is not.. For the rest, a few more people will find jobs in the Public Service; the Budget will be loaded a bit deeper with administrative expenses; and prices will go on rising just so long as the Government goes on increasing costs. No tribunal has yet been invented to override the fundamental economic truth that unless the cost of a product is covered by its selling price, it will not be produced.