MEAT PRICE ORDER

Grey River Argus, 18 March 1942, Page 3

MEAT PRICE ORDER

Exceeded by Butchers

CHRISTCHURCH COMPLAINT AGAINST TRIBUNAL.

P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, March 28. Twenty-eight Christchurch butchers were charged at the Magistrate’s Court with selling meat at a price not in conformity with the Price Order. ■ , With the exception of one defendant, who disputed the facts and against whom the charge was dismissed, ail of the persons charged were convicted, and were ordered to pay costs. The defendants, it was stated , by counsel for the defence, “had deliberately courted prosecution, so that injustices and absurdities of the Price Order made by the Price Tnbunal, which made business virtuallv imposisble, could be aired in Court. The defendants admitted the breaches, but they pleaded “not guilty,” only to bring facts before the Court, said' counsel Mr. A. W- Brown, for the prosecution, said that no increase was to be made in the price of any goods witnout the authority of the Price Tribunal'. When inspectors visited the defendants’ shops, they found that small increases in the prices allowed had been made. The increases, for the most part, were small, but they aggregated a large sum when the amount of meat sold was considered. As Mr. C. S. Thomas (counsel for defence) would say, butchers to-day were labouring under terrific difficulties. Mr. C. S. Thomas said that; the main argument to show difficulties under which butchers were labouring was that a Tribunal had fixed a maximum and butchers could not pass on increases. Tests showed, Mr Thomas said, that loss on a beef carcase was £1 4s 3d. and on a sheep carcase 3s lid.

The Magistrate, Mr. E. C. Levvey: “It seems to me to be a fit and proper case for the Bench to make some comment. It is difficult to understand—-in fact it is more than difficult, it is incredible —that any Tribunal, in the face of figures produced in the Court to-day, which have been proved and verified, should make such a basic order which puts binding chains on the producer. The order provides a price for the retailer, but none for the producer. The obvious result was that prices nan risen for butchers, and meat had to be sold at a loss, because it does not. apparently, take into account fluctuations or differences in conditions. It is a dogmatic, fixed and inflex ible rule. The rights of the public need to be safeguarded, but not at the expense of the butchers, who. in effect, would be forced out of busines by the Order. It is incredible to realise that such an .order has ever been made.