RESTRAINT OF TRADE?

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 81, 3 October 1921, Page 7

RESTRAINT OF TRADE?

AGAINST THE PUBLIC INTEREST

NEED FOB GOVERNMENT

ACTION.

(Contributed by the New Zealand

Welfare League.)

On all sides we hear reports of trusts and combines operating to the detriment of the general public. Mr. T: M. Wilford, M.P., makes references to an oil trust and a meat trust, and now Mr. Masters, M.P., makes very 'direct charges with respect to an asserted cement' trust. Only a little while ago wo had outspoken statements about combines on the part of Labour to control the coal supplies and transport industries of the Dominion. If unrestricted trusts and combines, whether of Capital or Labour, are to be allowed to act within the Dominion to their own particular advantages and without due regard to the rights and needs of. the great body of the public, then our country will be placed in a very bad position. The league has throughout protested strongly that general welfare can only be conserved by limiting the powers of self-interested sectional combinations j where these are in any way acting to the detriment of the people as _ consumers. Whilst we condemned the policy of those extremists who acted against the public good by enforcing a " go-slow" Labour policy, we equally condemn any business firms that seek, through their power of financial combination, to check the free operation of trade and commerce merely to serve their own selfish enda. The statement made by Mr, Masters, M.P., in Parliament respecting the closing down of the Golden Bay Cement Company is such as calls foT the fullest investigation. Mr. G. Mitchell,- M.P., ■was certainly right in saying that "the question raised- is. a very graye1 one." Whilst wishing to avoid any prejudging of the case before the defence is fully presented, we are yet of opinion that the explanation made by Mr. G, Elliot, chairman of Wilson's (N.Z.) Portland Cement Company, Ltd., is by no means sufficient. Mr. Elliot says : "The two companies did not close the Golden Bay works. They had little to db with it. They agreed to the suggestion made by the Golden Bay Company." Well, apparently he^ does deny the statement madie by Mr. Masters that there was a specific agreement entered into by the three companies to close down one of them, and that i 6 what concerns the public, not who made the suggestion, but who carried! it out is the oi-ux of the matter when considering what Mr. Masters boldly describes as "this scandalous commercial immorality." Thiere ar© several statements made by Mr. Masters that demand full answers, such ac :— (a) That the increased costs of labour and materials did not wawant a rise in.sellmg price from £2 3s to. £7 10s 6di iii two yeaTs. (b) That when the companies were selling cement at £2 3s a ton tihey were paying a dividend. (o) That the Board of Trade madte a grievous error in agreeing to a further rise of 30s per ton, bringing the price up to £7 10s- 6d. . We believe that New Zealand can produce all the cement it requires for its own use without having to import,' but if works are to ha dosed down in order to maintain a payable price, ■whilst there is a duty of 12s per ton and. 1 per cent, primage charges on the imported product, the companies remaining in operation here may have the public wholly nnder control. That the price charged is a, factor that bears upon the extent of the demand none can deny. Mr. Elliot suggests that there is a smallness of demand for cement, but it has still to be made clear whether the demand for the goods is not being checked by an excessive selling price. The fullest inquiry into this whole business should be instituted as early as possible. • Combination and as^eement to. close down productive works bears the stamp of a very ugly kind of "go-slow" business, and we care not whether it is on the part of Capital or Labour, everything of the kind should be sifted right through and, the abuses drastically checked in the interests of the general welfare.