"A GLORIOUS MUDDLE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 136, 6 December 1943, Page 4

"A GLORIOUS MUDDLE"

On a first reading, it would appear that the Auckland merchant who described the cabbage position, as disclosed in a message from Auckland, as "a glorious muddle" is not very wide of the mark. According to the message, while cabbages are still bearing the price tag of 3_d per lb in various retail shops, and while householders are being urged to dig for victory, some auctioneering firms in the city would gladly ..give away cabbages if citizens would remove them from their premises. In some instances recently, it is reported, a sack of cabbages has failed to bring a bid of Bd, the cost of the sack. These are statements that should certainly be investigated. If they can be. substantiated, then it is clear that a Gilbertian position has been allowed to develop. When ceiling prices for certain vegetables were fixed, we pointed to the danger of their being regarded as the minimum as well as the maximum. If it were possible to fix a uniform' price for vegetables, that would probably be the best arrangement for all concerned, but under present conditions apparently the only uniformity is in the price which the consumer has to pay. "Why should the retailer bother when he has fixed prices?" asks an Auckland merchant. "At present he can make as much profit out of one sack of cabbages sold at the maximum price as if he showed initiative and bought heavily on a cheap market and sold at a reasonable price. In normal times he would do this, and the consumer would benefit from enterprise and competition, but fixed prices have ended all that." If this summing up of the position can be accepted, it makes no difference to the consumer whether vegetables are in plentiful supply or not. The price he pays remains the same. Obviously there is something radically wrong with a system that allows this to happen, especially when, as is suggested in the Auckland message, auctioneering firms have been forced to send cabbages to the destructor. The position disclosed in the Auckland message should be investigated at once. There should also be an inquiry into the further statement that the fixed price of cabbages was reduced from 3_d to 2Jd per lb as from December 1, but that in several shops at the weekend the old price was still being charged. The consumer is entitled to protection, just as the grower is entitled to a fair price for his produce.