RETAIL PRICE OF COAL UP : FIRST RISE SINCE 1938

Evening Star, Issue 26154, 16 July 1947, Page 4

RETAIL PRICE OF COAL UP : FIRST RISE SINCE 1938

Retail prices for coal in Dunedin have advanced 3s per ton, or an average of 3d per bag. This increase has been passed on to the public by merchants, with the approval or the Price Investigation Tribunal, to offset the abolition of a Government subsidy of 3s per ton that was granted to the traide id May, 1944. -

This m the first inepase in coal prices ip Dunedin since December, 1938, and it was oxpected by the trade, in view of a recent intimation by the Government that subsidies were to be withdrawn. The subsidy of 3s | was introduced to compensate merchants for the additional costs ■ i'ichrred in dealing with smaller sacks, whieli were veduced in size from 1871 b to 1401 b, At that time delivery staifs were protesting about the weight of ithe bags, and « compromise was reached without costs to the public being incurred, The president, of the Dunedin ; Coal .Merchants’ Union, Mr D. R, Wilson, said to-day that although the subsidy

had been withdrawn, it was not intended to increase the size of the bags, 16 of which now went to a tan of coal. Before the introduction of the subsidy, he said, there were 12 bags to the ton. Mr Wilson commented that no increase had been granted to the coal trade to cover increased costs for wages and tyres for trucks used for deliveries of coal. The increase in the price of coal. is apparently another move in the policy of the Government to extricate itself from the high cost of subsidies- The coal subsidy to reajlers has been distinct from the subsidy to the coal mine owners, amounting to roughly 10s a ton on production costs,