CONTROL OF PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1936, Page 11

CONTROL OF PRICES

MINISTER ON POLICY

SCHEME NEAR FINALITY

' iliy ' TcWrupU— lVesH Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. ! "Finality in connection with the Government policy of controlling prices is likely to be reached within the next few days, according to a statement made by the Minister or Industries and Commerce Uhe Hon. D. G. Sullivan) today. The Minister said that there was scarcely any question in which the Government was more interested at the moment than that of prices. "Our aim and object," he added, -is to increase the prosperity of the Dominion and to improve the standard of living of the people, but if prices are allowed to shoot upwards the effect would be to cancel out all the work we are doing. The Government is determined to prevent that, even if it means utilising to the full the powers which we possess under the Board of Trade Act."

"I am now," he continued, "beginning to see daylight through the problem and the possibilities of the policy that will at one and the same time protect the public from exploitation, ensure to the people the advantages of increased circulation of money and higher wages, prevent inflation, and do justice to the business section of the community. There are good prospects of finality being reached in the coming week."

An extraordinary feature of the inquiries made by the Department of Industries and Commerce, said the Minister, had been the wide variation in employers' own estimates as to what their increased costs would be under the new order. However competent many of the manufacturers might be on the manufacturing side, they had not shown the same grasp of the economics of their businesses, and ho had had to put accountants of the Department into mills and factories to conduct an examination of the position. This examination had often proved enlightening to the owners of factories and mills in regard to their own busi-

nesses. ' . "We arc determined to prevent exploitation 'and to see that the people get the benefits of our legislation, but we will be just in our dealings with business," said the Minister. "It is only fair that I should say that up to the present I have had fair treatment on this question from businesses with which I have been dealing."