COLLECTIVE TRADING.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13665, 6 August 1908, Page 4

COLLECTIVE TRADING.

We are disappointed with "Socialist." It 15 quite ridiculous tu attempt to discredit the'" figiues which we quoted fium. Lord Avebury's " Municipal and .National Tiad")g," by raying tlub ha it, nti opponent, of municipal tiadmg. Everybody Vho knows anything about the bubject, Is mm* that he is so, and »e explicitly quoted him , a* a- hostile witness against the system advocated: by our coi respondent. However, his peisonal 6puuou wai? Hob the'pbmf at issue, and the figuies w gave iroin' v the book do not depend, upon his views for their reliability. , Loid Avebury gh<» his authority for all thetfgures and tables fmbished "t the' \ v olume—the auditor" of London County Council, the "SUtibt" (peihaps the ablest financial journal in London), Field's Tables (for puces of gas), reports, t»f vaiioits -committees of the London County Council „ and 4>o forth. Loid Avebury himself might be the most unscrupulous publicist extant (though his reputation is eutucly of on opposite character) but hib -are not open to question. Ho is only taking the Council's own figures when he shows that land which cost the Council £200,000 was handed on to the Housing Committee for £45,000 ;thab the tiamwuys leased io a company by the Council 1 yielded a lent of £191,600 while a similar system woiked by the Council llbclf gave <i profit in the same time of only £23,900 and that in spile of the fact that the Council vos supplying to the Ti.unway Committee at 2i per cent-wapjlal for which it was itself paying 3 per cent. We might quota much more from Loid Avebury to show that the pi ice of gas supplied by corporations Tanged from 2s Id to 2s 6d per 1000 feet "while in comparable towns soncd by companions the puce w«is from Is to to 2s Id. Where municipal trading has been a success, it had been duo principally to the establishment of » municipal monopoly enabling tile Ideal authority to charge what it likes in order to show n profit