WELLINGTON TOPICS

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14818, 5 December 1921, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE CEMENT INQUIRY,

REPORT OP COMMISSIONER,

(Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON, December 2

Though there were more important matters before, the House of Representatives on Wednesday- none of them aroused quite as much interest as did the presentation of the report of the Acting Chief Justice, in his capacity of Royal Commssoner, upon the grave allegations made by Mr Robert Masters, the member for Stratford, against the cement companies and the Board of Trade. The.tenor of the report Has been fairly generally anticipated from the facts disclosed at the enquiry, but there remained a good deal of curiosity as to the wording of the Commissioner's findings, and as to their significance. The House was not kept long in suspense. Mr Justice' Sims having made the issue jalain and having briefly reviewed the evidence, proceeded to state his conclusions with the judicial precision proper to the occasion. They were in effect that the Board of Trade had not been guilty of impropriety or error of judgment, that the rises in price it had authorised were justified, that the companies had not charged unreasonable prices and that the agreement between them had not been illegal or criminal. Restraint of Trade. The last finding, of course, had reference to the arrangement by which the Golden Bay Company suspended operations and received a bonus from ' Wn other two companies when it became obvious that the collapse of the market in March last had produced conditions which made it impossible for the three concerns lo carry on at a 'reasonable trade profit. This arrangement, the Commissioner holds. wiis a restraint of trade, hut a reasonable restraint having regard to the interests' of the contracting narlie.s, and t<j the interests of the public. "It was not" the report runs, "made to prevent people from gutting cement, or to stifle* competition, or to increase the price of cement, and was not intended by the parties to operatc'to the detriment of Ihe public in any way." The Commissioner emphasises his point by silying that the price of cement has not been "unreasonably high at any time during the existence of the agreement and lhat, there is no action the Board of Trade con'd nrnperlv take to disturb the arrangement. Publ'o interests a'/e not suffering and are not likely to suffer. Public Opinion. So much for the judicial pronouncement. Public opinion on the matter cannot yet be very precisely gauged. but both inside and outside the House there is a feeling that Mr Masters was badly advised in not allowing himself time for second thoughts before impugning the findings of the Commissioner. The Ministers of Industries and Commerce and the Board of Trade always are fair targets for criticism. but the judge of the Supreme Court and the affairs of private people are not to be dragged lightly into the arena of political controversy. No one who followed the evidence adduced at the inquiry at all closely and without bias will doubt the soundness and the justice of the Commissioner's findings. . The order of reference may have been defective, as Mr Masters insists it was, and" the Government may have been responsible for its shortcomings, but these were matters with which Mr Justice Sim had nothing whatever to : do. As for the suggestion lhat the Minister had been influenced in his attitude towards the companies by his personal concern for some of their shareholders, this was altogether outside the rules of the game and naturally pro- , voked a retort in kind. Beneath the Surface. Of course there were parts of the report that lent themselves to picturesque treatment.. The Commissioner's nice distinction between proper and improper restraints of trade, for instance, was so subtle that one was left wondering just where the dividing line lay. But so far as the companies were concerned they appear to have emerged from the invesigation quite unscralched. The Golden Bay Company, which was .made the pivot, so to speak, on which Mr Mastors's charges turned, has experienced many vicissitudes during the fourteen or fifteen years of its existence, paying only four small dividends during that time, but its management in recent years,' at any rate, seems to have been broad based on the best business principles. It was tho enormous advance in the price of coal, while its rivals were able to utilise hydro-electric power, which made ■ It the weaker vessel when the present arrangement was concluded. It is an open secret that this arrangement does '■not satisfy some of the people associa- ' ted with the enterprise and that these people are mainly responsible for the manufacture of the bolls Mr Masters has been hurling at the management.