THE FIXING OF PRICES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20319, 30 January 1928, Page 10

THE FIXING OF PRICES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—lt is a pity you mixed up the sentence in my previous letter respecting the pork subsidy. I endeavoured in it to show how vested interests will mis-represent, or make misstatements, to suit their own ends. That, however, is by the way. Your footnote to my letter is not an answer to my question. There is no doubt that the Master Printers’ Association and the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association exist for the mutual interest of their members. Neither is there any doubt in my mind that their operations are detrimental to the citizens of the Dominion. For instance, if a breeder wants a few bill heads to send out accounts to his clients he has to pay the price fixed by one or other of the associations. If he desires to advertise his stock he must pay the price fixed by the association. If he has some printing he wants done, and thinks this warrants him going round a few printers in order to get the cheapest price—what happens First_ of all he calls at an office and states his requirements. ■' Right-o, we will s end along a quotation.” And so he goes round a. number of printers, and returns homo thinking he will reoeivo competitive prices for his job. Does he get competitive prices? Not a bit of it; he gets a price fixed by those printer s he has asked to give him competitive prices. A ballot is held to decide which printer will quote the fixed price, and the remaining printers quote something higher than the fixed price quoted by the printer drawn in the ballot. The innocent dairyman, or breeder, believes that ho has got competitive prices. I doubt very much whether this procedure is legitimate; at any rate it is open to abuse, and the abuse of it may cost the citizens many thousands more than the proposed subsidy to the pork industry. I though that a firm of such high-standing commercial morality as the Otago Daily Times would be against such a wicked thing as the fixing of prices for a commercial commodity. I suppose it is quite all right for a printer to do such things, but not for the dairyman.—l am, etc., Breeder.

[Wo regret if any sentence in a letter by our correspondent wa s “ mixed up.” We are not aware that such a thing hap. poned. If it did, it was through a pure inadvertence. Nor is it very apparent that any connection exists between a proposal that the taxpayers should pay a subsidy to the exporters of pork and the arrangements that are made by any organisation of printers to secure that a fair and legitimate price shall bo obtained for their work. Advertising rates are not fixed by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association. Each newspaper has its own scale. The cost of printing executed by members of the Master Printers’ Association is based on the standard hour cost system which ha s been approved by the Board of Trade.— Ed. 0.D.T.l