KITCHEN TABLE CASE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 4130, 30 October 1920, Page 6

KITCHEN TABLE CASE.

♦ A FINE OF £100. (Per Frees Association.) Dunedin, October 29. Riach and M'Lennan, warehousemen, were convicted of profiteering in connection with the sale of a kitchen table. Defendants were fined £100 and costs. Mr Bartholomew, S.M., said the price, of the table stated to Mrs McFarlane on her first visit was £2':ss; that on her subsequent visit she purchased it for £2'7s 6d; that the factory cost to defendant company was "30s, less 2 i per cent, for cash; that the maximum permissible trade profit was 33 per cent. Allowing 2s 6d for cartage, the extreme retail price would he £2 2s 6d, and this was somewhat in excess of other traders' prices. The table, therefore, was sold at a price which was unreasonably high. In considering the question of penalty, his Worship observed that a —■"ier' circumstance to take into consideration was the defence set up.