PRICE IN WELLINGTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16926, 12 August 1918, Page 4

PRICE IN WELLINGTON.

"NO UNDUE PROFIT."

[BT TELEGE.VPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

WELLINGTON. Sunday. A report on the Question of the existing I supplies of coal and the prices charged ! has been prepared by the Board of Trade. i The report states that very small, screened or unscreened, from the West Coast mines, which finds a ready sale for industrial uses, is being resold in Wellington for household purposes. The shortage that has existed hae been met to a certain extent by the use of lignite stocks, theboard states, and the main soured of the supply of lignite slack is the Waikato district, and tbat the freight, cartage and labour charges bring its cost to the retail dealers to, approximately, £1 16s a ton. The Wellington dealers, in the majority of cases, have been charging the same rate (or lignite slack as for West Coast small steam or unscreened coal. The board, however, has arranged with the Wellington Coal Dealers' Association to charge a separate rate for Waikato slack coal, and this, in future, will be supplied at 2s a hundredwight. The board stale? that it has gone into the question of the profit that dealers are making out of coal, and that it is satisfied that undue profits have not been made in the past. With regard to West Coast coal, the board says that the prices nowcharged appear to be reasonable, and that whilst present conditions remain they will not be increased.