The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-12-29

stupendous effort to grapple with profiteering is just disclosed by the work of 1,60O tribunals which have prosecuted 1850 offenders and secur- ed 1920 convictions. with fines aggre- gating $35.O0O.
 Besides setting up these local tri- bunals to which complaints against dealers are submitted. appeal tribun- als have been established in specified areas of England, Scotland and Wales. In addition central committees also have been formed to investigate SUD- posed trusts or mOnoplies which may be manipulating wholesale prices. This has been done under the prof. teering act.
 Apart from the prosecution of com plaints, the board of trade, which is charged with administration of the anti-profiteering law, is independent ly Investigating prices, costs and profits of large number of disting- uished accountants, which is assist ing the central committee, in it's task. A subcommittee on trusts has been empowered to obtain whatever tech nical and expert assistance may be required.
 In scope. the act applies to any article or class of articles which is one of a kind in common use by the public" or to any material, machin- cry or accessories used in the pro- ductiOn of such articles" The act does not apply to controlled" al ticles, such as butter, sugar. beer. flour. uors-commodities for which maximum prices were fixed by war time legislation.
 A clear-cut definition of the term "pro6teering" has been point which has given local tribunals much difficulty in the prosecution of their tasks. So far. the definition laid down by Sir Aukland Geddes. presi- dent of the board of trade, has been It follows: The making of an un- reasonably large profit. all the cir cumstances being known, by the sale to ones fellow citizens of an article which is one. or one of kind, in common use."
 On the moot question of what con- stitutes an unreasonable profit" c. A. McCurdy. parliamentary secre- teering is the fact that the public tary to the ministry of food, recently declared, One of the causes of prof. seems to have lost all sense of what is a reasonable profit. A good princi- pie for tribunals to work upon is not to ask themselves whether the profit is higher than someone else is charg- ing, but is the profit arrived at on any reasonable business principles or is it merely dictated by avarice and greed?"
 MT. McCurdy has characterized the profiteering act as "an abnormal remedy for an abnormal state of public feeling-an act not intended to harass British trade. but to help it restore it to normal and healthy conditions"
 Critics of the governments anti profiteering machinery point to off, cial figures just published in the board of trades Labor Gazette show ing that, despite efforts to beat down living costs, the general level of re- tail prices on October 1. was about 120 per cent above pre-war figures. or an increase of five Der cent as compared with the level of September ] last when the local tribunals were just getting under way. But 1t is not contended. even by these fault finders, that the increase would not have been larger had the govern ment made no effort to bring the proiteers to book.
 Against such objections may be set such testimonials as that of the Yarmouth profiteering committee which claims that a reduction in wholesale prices by as much as thir- ty-five per cent has been noticeable in that locality.
 Membership of the local tribunals is fixed at from seven to twenty-five, two of whom must be women. All complaints are heard in public ex- cept In special cases when under authority of the board of trade. pro- ceedings may be in private. Books or documents produced at private hearings are to be treated as con-
 fiadential if the person producing them so desires. Laboi ,s represent ed on the local tribunals and on the central cimmittee, among the mem- bers of the committee being T. H. Thomas, executive head of the rail- way men during the recent strike and c. H. Stuart Burning. president of the British trades union congress. Local tribunals have been empow- A. HI yl