APPEAL COURT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 24 July 1925, Page 3

APPEAL COURT.

ARGUMENT FOR RESPONDENTS. IN FLOUR MILLING CASE, (BY TEIjEOIIAPU. CHESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON. July 23. Before both divisions of the Appeal Court the hearing was continued to-day of the appeal in the floiirmilhng case. Continuing for the respondents, Mr Skerrett said that it was clear that the maximum price ot bread must be fixed in such relation to flourmilling as t<> allow a reasonable profit to the miller. The Government in 1919 paid a subsidy to millers, and in the following year increased this to 87s 6d per ton. The prices for wheat, hour and bread were fixed for four years. Then in 1922 the Government announced that it would not guarantee the wheat price further, but nothing was said about the embargo. Millers overbought wheat, and decided to face the loss by selling hour at competitive prices. The resultant price-cutting threatened to destroy the milling industry, and Distributors Ltd. furnished the means to prevent this. If the proprietory of Distributors Ltd. was doubled there was power under the Board of Control Act, 1917. to investigate its affairs, and if need be to suppress the company. Dealing with, the law on the subject, Mr Skerrett contended that n commercial trust was not an offence under the Act. Only certain acts committed by such a trust were punishable as offences. Price-fixing by a trust was contemplated under the Act, and was not an offence unless prices were unreasonably high. At the lower court trial the Crown abandoned the charge that the prices of hour, bran and pol--1 lard in New Zealand had been unI reasonably high since October, 1922. The hearing was adjourned.