POWERS EXTENDED

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20994, 22 December 1939, Page 10

POWERS EXTENDED

PRICE TRIBUNAL INDEPENDENT ACTION FIXATION OF MARGINS (By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Thursday Additional powers are given the Price Investigation Tribunal in regulations issued to-night under the Emergency Regulations Act passed by Parliament in September. Explanation of the regulations was ! given by the Minister of Industries ! and Commerce, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, who said the purpose was to clothe the tribunal with extra powers, which experience had shown were desirable and which would ! make for still more effective admin- i istration of the law relating to the j control of prices and profiteering. i “Up to the present,” said Mr Sulli- j van, “the tribunal has functioned i under the Board of Trade Act and I has exercised powers delegated to it by the Minister. To facilitate the j work of the tribunal in dealing with j applications for price increases the | Government has now given directly j to the tribunal powers which form- I erly were exercised only by delega- | tion. To enable such powers to be properly exercised the tribunal has j been constituted under the regulations themselves and its powers and i functions are set out in the regula- J tions. Issue Price Orders I “Among the additional powers j conferred on the tribunal is the, power to issue price orders fixing . the wholesale or retail price of any j goods therein specified, or fixing margins within which any such goods may be bought or sold. Any sale : made subsequent to the issue of a price order wj?ich is not in confrom- I ity with such order is an offence | against the regulations. ” -i The Minister said he hoped that j in addition to giving more effective j control over prices in the interests I of the public, the regulations would also prove of advantage to traders in enabling applications to be dealt , with even more expeditiously than , had been the case in the past.