PAPER MILLS CASE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 64, 15 March 1940, Page 9

PAPER MILLS CASE

MINIMUM PRICES

COMPANY'S SUBMISSIONS

After conferences had been heldj among and between the parties and i also with the tribunal in private which lasted the whole morning, Mr. H. P. Richmond, counsel for Whakatane Paper Mills, Ltd., submitted to the Price Investigation Tribunal this afternoon the minimum prices on which the company feels that it will be possible to carry on business. These provide for a general increase of £ 1 a ton on the cardboard produced by the company over and above the prices which have been worked out on the basis of the tribunal's interim findings given j earlier this month; The company also asked for special additions on net prices for certain board, but these Mr. Richmond said were charges which the trade now paid. Mr. Justice Hunter, president of the tribunal, said that Dr. Foden for the Crown and Mr. W. Perry for the box- j makers would have the right to make submissions in writing on these prices. The tribunal would be. glad to receive those submissions as. soon as possible, and it would then consider the whole of the material before it and'give its final decision. The tribunal did not propose to hold any further sitting on the matter. Dr. Foden said that on the face of the proposals, in the short time he had been able to discuss them with his advisers, there appeared to be weaknesses in them from the Crown's point of view and he thought he might also say fallacies. He mentioned this because he did not want to hold out any hope that they were going to be accepted at the present moment. Mr. Perry said he desired to" discuss the proposals with the boxmakers' re- | presentatives before placing further observations and comments on them I before the tribunal.