HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 21, 26 January 1943, Page 4

HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?

In reply, to criticism of marketing control the Government has claimed that the foodstuffs (.particularly fruit and vegetables) for which the highest prices have ruled have not been subject to .control. That is not quite correct. High prices are still being paid for potatoes—though admittedly not the absurd peak prices of a year ago. But when control is discussed it must not be regarded as confined to the operations of any one Government agency, such as the Internal Marketing Division. The whole ramifications of Government action— whether as buyer and seller, as pricefixer, or as buyer only—must be taken into account. It is quite possible for heavy Government buying to disturb a market disproportionately because it is not supported by arrangements to ration the remaining supplies. Also incomplete control may be worse in its general effect than no control at all. But what the public want is! evidence that Government interyen- j tion, whatever form it takes, is correcting faults and eliminating troubles. They have a suspicion that as many anomalies are created as are corrected. Several specific complaints have been given publicity lately, and have had no answer. For example, a correspondent recently drew attention to the unaccountable gap between a market price of 3s a lb for raspberries in Wellington and a fixed price of 6£d a lb for raspberries sold in Nelson for jam-making and preserving. Again, attention was drawn a while ago to a Pukekohe farmer's statement that beans sold on the Auckland market for 3s 6d to 5s a case,(4olb), at the time when they were marked in Wellington retail shops at 8d to Is a lb.Again, people have been puzzled by the fact that, when they could buy only two or three eggs a week for a whole family, they could be bought by all-comers fried, poached, scrambled, or boiled in many public eating places by paying the price for eggs in this form. Ministerial statements may prove—to official satisfaction —that control is good in theory and well administered in practice; but the private householder, well aware of facts such as those cited, will ask: "Then how do these things happen?"