CHEAPER GOODS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 February 1947, Page 4

CHEAPER GOODS

EFFECT OF PRICE CONTROL • REMOVAL EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA (P.A.) AUCKLAND, Feb. 18. The opinion that the abolition of price ceilings in the United States had eventually resulted in a general cheapening of commodities was formed by Mr. P. M. Andersen, governing director of an Australian engineering company, during a stay of several months in America. Mr. Andersen, who passed through Auckland on the Marine Phoenix, told interviewers that, with labour troubles straightening themselves out, American recovery from postwar, difficulties was marked and. that in another six months Americans would find themselves out of the wood. Problems were being tackled in a businesslike way. Production had been stimulated by the abolition of price ceilings, Mr. Andersen said, and several weeks ago commodity markets seemed to hold more goods than were required immediately by buyers. The way in which shortages were beingovercome should be an example to Australia and New Zealand, where controls persisted. Price control was discussed by the president.of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation (Mr. W. J. Truscott, Auckland) in his annual report to the federation. Mr. Truscott ;said the prqsent system was detrimentally affecting the immediate supply of many classes of goods which were in urgent need, and the ability of manufacturers to extend their operations and improve thenquality and efficiency. The wartime system of price and profit control should be abandoned as soon as possible; perhaps, as a first step, in the case of products as they became available to meet normal demands. Mr. Truscott contended that there .were cases where price reductions would take place if it were not for the control system, which was materially retarding this development. Manufacturers accepted the need for some form of price control until the supply of consumer goods more or less equalled the demand, but expressed strong dissatisfaction with certain of the present methods of administering control and the policy of allowing profit control to be a dominant feature.