HIDDEN INCREASES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 70, 20 September 1943, Page 4

HIDDEN INCREASES

In a statement on Saturday the Minister of Supply (Mr. Sullivan) gave his approval to the action of the Price Tribunal in suggesting to a firm the alternatives of a subsidy or increases in the price of non-stabilised items as compensation for its inability to increase the price of a item. Objection cannot be taken to the proposal to grant a subsidy, although such a method of keeping down costs could not be approved in normal circumstances, but the proposal to make a compensating adjustment in the -price of non-stabilised items is a different matter altogether.. It is true that in business practice smaller profits are often accepted on fast-moving lines or "catch" lines, but it is contrary to public policy for an official body such as the Price Tribunal to suggest variation of profit rates when the result is to cause an actual increase to be paid by some other people in^ some other way; and it is contrary to public policy for a Minister to give his approval to such a method. There can be full agreement that it is desirable to keep the prices of stabilised lines stationary, but when it is done by allowing the. prices of other commodities to be increased it is difficult to see how there is any benefit to. the public? What they are being asked to do is to subsidise a stabilised item out of their! own pockets. The price of the stabilised item remains stationary, but the prices of several, other items are increased. In the long run the public are no better off. The system which Mr. Sullivan has [defended. really amounts to disguising and hiding an actual increase. : ; f