BEER AND SPIRITS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26849, 13 August 1948, Page 4

BEER AND SPIRITS

NEW PRICE ORDER VALIDITY IN QUESTION TEST CASE RECOMMENDED P.A. CHRISTCHURCH. Aug. 12. “ I have no knowledge of the matter and no comment to make.” said the Director of Price Control, Mr H. L. Wise, referring to the remarks of Mr F. G. Young, secretary of the New Zealand Hotel Workers’ Federation, about the new price order for spirits and beer in a report received by the Canterbury Licensed Victuallers’ Association this week. Mr Young recommended hotel licensees to disregard the order and defend any prosecutions which might be made. A test case could then be made. The other course open was to attack the validity of the order by proceedings in the Supreme Court. Any licensee prosecuted should be defended by the best legal brains available, and the whole trade should foot the bill, he said. “We should not, however, act in a provocative manner, because if we do steps will undoubtedly be taken to legalise the price order by redrafting or by other means,” said Mr Young. “ We should use it primarily as a means of delaying the operation of the order and so securing more time to seek by negotiation relief from its harsh terms. To take advantage of this fault in the drafting of the order is to ask for more trouble later,” he said.

Referring to a recent case in Greymouth, where a magistrate had held that a measure for brandy did not come within the Weights and Measures Act, he said: “I strongly recommend licensees, as far as is practicable, to serve spirits in nips that are 42 to the bottle and to charge 7d where beer is sold in 12oz containers and 6d when it is sold in smaller containers. Country hotels using smaller containers than lOoz should continue to do so where, after taking freight charges into account. their profit is not substantially greater than that allowed to city hotelkeepers.” The order might be bad in law, according to a legal opinion quoted by Mr Young. The opinion 'held that clause 7 of the order fixing the price of beer at 6d for lOoz was invalid, as the Price Tribunal had no power to order licensees to serve beer in lOoz containers.