PRICE ORDER EXCEEDED

Evening Star, Issue 25770, 17 April 1946, Page 8

PRICE ORDER EXCEEDED

BUTCHER FINED TRADE DIFFICULTIES For selling meat at a price in excess of that fixed by the tribunal, Joseph Ernest Bartlett, a butcher, of Anderson's Ray, appeared before Mr H. \V. Bundle, S.M., in the Police Court yesterday and was fined £l2 10s and costs (£3 l.'ls). The conviction was the result of a test purchase made by a Price Tribunal inspector. The charge was that on January 18, 1946, he sold 31b 3oz of corned silverside of beef for .'ls, whereas the maximum price then permitted by Price Order No. 291 was lOd a pound. The Magistrate held that a technical breach had been committed,' and said that the difficulties under which the trade was labouring should be the subject of complaint to the Legislature and not to the court. The Police Court was not a court of appeal. Mr F. B. Adams prosecuted, and Mr E. J. Anderson appeared for the defendant. Inspector M. M. Walker gave evidence that she entered the defendant's shop at Anderson's Bay at 9.55 a.m. on January 18 and ordered 3lb of silverside, for which she surrendered coupons to the value of 3s and paid 3s. She was served by the defendant himself, and she then told him that she wa.s an inspector and that the purchase had been a test one. She asked him to weigh the meat again, and it weighed 311) 3oz. In reply to her question, he said the price was lljd a pound. She asked him if he had Price Order No. 291, and she was referred to a large card on a wall of the shop. It was too far away for her to be able to read it. She asked the defendant if the order did not specify lOd a pound for the meat which she. had bought and whether he, in his capacity of president of the Dunedin branch of the Masters Butchers' Association, did not know that the specified price was lOd. The defendant did not deny that he knew the price was lOd, but said that at the price he was paying for beef it was impossible for him to sell at 10d a pound. Witness told him that he had the right to call and see or to write to the district officer and explain his case, and she produced a letter to the officer written by the defendant. In cross-examination, witness said that the test purchase had been made because of 'written and telephoned complaints against the defendant. Those complaints referred to the price he was charging for joints. She had bought the silverside on instructions, and, she added, it was " a very nice piece of silverside." Mr Anderson emphasised that it was impossible for butchers to make a sensible profit and comply with the price order. The subsidy was not up to date, and its lack of ethics was exemplified by the fact that the gazetted regulations gave individual butchers the right to applv for an increase of Id a pound against additional charges such as freight, etc. When the price order was made, the wholesale price paid by butchers was 43s a 1001 b on the hoof. The price now was 525. The subsidy had not been revised to cover increases faced by butchers in abattoir charges, labour, and other costs.