UNIONISTS AND PROFITS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXX, Issue LXXX, 22 January 1920, Page 3

UNIONISTS AND PROFITS

PENALITIES TOO MODERATE

A trades and labor council declined to nominate delegates to the local tribunal, states the 'Manchester Guardian, on the ground that the Profiteering Act is useless in that whilst it is oppressive to retail shopkeepers it fails to .touch the wholesale sharks. Judging from details which are supplied by one who has watched closely the reported decisions of the tribunals, this council's view seems to be fairly accurate.

Of seventeen reported cases in this category nine were dismissed on the ground that the prices were fair; in seven instances refunds were ordered, and the remaining case was adjourned for enquiries by the executive officer. The total of the refunds in seven cases was Is 9kl. These poor results are probably due to the fact that 94 per cent of the goods sold by grocers are controlled by the Ministry of Food, but the percentage of "convictions"— if an order to refund can be termed a conviction—in other trades is only slightly higher. The worst instance of profiteering that has come to my notice occurred in a town in Surrey, where a woman was charged £1 Is for repair of a pair of shoes.

• The tribunals have great difficulty in deciding what is a reasonable profit. They cannot very well resist the traders' claim that the profit on an article must be determined not on the actual cost, but on the market value of the article at the time of sale. This standpoint is taken on the ground that stock cannot be replaced except at very high prices, and it is just here that the wholesale "sharks" 'are having a good time.