Evening Post FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1942. HOW TO PUT IT RIGHT?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1942, Page 4

Evening Post FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1942. HOW TO PUT IT RIGHT?

The comment of most housewives on the vegetable inquiry report will probably be: "I don't see any carrots in it." Fourteen causes for shortage and high prices are set out, but there I are not as many, nor as definite, proposals for putting the matter right. Still, it would be wrong to be too critical on this score. The first step in putting a matter right is to discover exactly what is wrong and why it is wrong. The Price Tribunal has certainly made great progress in this respect. We are not so sure that all its tentative suggestions for improvement are well based. Planned production, if practicable, would be ideal, but is it practicable? The tribunal admits man's inability to control or plan for the seasons. We doubt also if planned production could be-carried far with perishable goods which must under present conditions be grown near the market. When we consider the world failure to deal with wheat, which can be transported and stored, we are doubtful of success in planned growing and distribution of vegetables that deteriorate so quickly that shortages and surpluses cannot be easily corrected by storage or carriage* from a distance. Instead of ambitiously attempting this planning (which 'would probably cause the Internal Marketing Department to grow quicker than the vegetables), we suggest that attention be given to furnishing as much information as possible regarding crops and demand, leaving growers to act in the light of this. Further, inquiry might profitably be made into means of improved cool transport, so as to widen the field from which shortages could be made good or over which surpluses could be spread. Concerning retail distribution, the tribunal holds that there are too many retail shops, resulting in overhead costs being disproportionately high. The public will agree that charges are high, and the growers claim that they do not get all the benefit. But we are more than doubtful of the remedy that the tribunal suggests—registration and licensing to bar newcomers from the trade and reduce the number of shops. Limitation of, competition in this "way, is rarely of public benefit. It may be harmful. A licensed trade tends always to become a closed trade, with marketable goodwill or vested interest. The tribunal admits that licensing would have to be accompanied by methods to prevent excessive profit-making and protect the public^ But the admitted difficulty of ascertaining costs and prices shows that such protection could not be complete. Anyway, why create a system that is potentially so dangerous that it must be controlled from the start? It would be better, we think, to explore the possibility of the open market plan, not as a means of doing all the trade but to provide a governing factor, which would check wasteful methods or excessive profits in the retail trade.