ALLEGED PROFITEERING

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10639, 12 July 1920, Page 5

ALLEGED PROFITEERING

THE D.I.C. GASES IMPORTANT POINTS IN APPEAL AGAINST CONVICTION. PEE FRESS ASSOCIATION. CHRISTCHURCH, July 10. Appeals have been lodged by tho Government and by the General and Drapery Importing Co., Ltd., in respect to the decisions of Mi- S. E. McCarthy, S.M., given on June 28th in connection with tho profiteering charges. The D.I.C. was fined £SO for tho sale of a girl's raincoat* at an unreasonably higli price (455), and the charges laid against five Christchurch hardware firms, concerning the price of "Big Ben" alarm clocks, were dismissed. Two charges of counselling to commit the offence of profiteering (in alarm clocks) laid against a Wellington firm were also dismissed. ERRONEOUS IN FACT AND LAW. The following are tho grounds for appeal in the D.I.C case: — (1) That the conviction was erroneous, both in point of fact and in law; (2) that there was no evidence upon which tho magistrate could find that the goods offered for sale were so offered at a price which was unreasonably high; (3) that the evidence showed the price at which the goods were offered for sale was not unreasonably high; (4) that the magistrate misdirected himself as to the true construction and meaning of section 32 of the Board of Trado Act/ 1919, inasmuch as he held that the- section required him to isolate each article sold, or offered for sale, and to determino whether such article,' by itself, and without reference to the business in which it was sold, or any other circumstance, was sold or offered for sale at an unreasonably high price, and further, that the section required him to disregard the fact that the article offered for sale was part of a range of samples, and that according to tho ordinary course and custom of the trade it was proper to price some articles higher than others to compensate for tho certainty, or extreme possibility, of having to sell other articles in the range of samples at a loss or at an unprofitable price; (5) that the magistrate had wrongly held that there was no evidence that the' price of the article offered for sale was fixed in accordance with any trade custom or usage. On the contrary, it was uncontradicted in evidence that the price was so fixed; (6) that on the evidence the defendant company was not guilty of an offence against section 32 of the Act. MAGISTRATE ASKED TO STATE A CASE. The appeal by the Government will be in regard to a point of law, and Mr McCarthy has been asked to state the case.