The Secretary, Prime Minister's Department, desires advice on the following matter submitted by the Commonwealth Leather Industries Board:

Under its powers derived from the War Precautions Act, the Commonwealth Leather Industries Board has fixed the maximum prices at which certain leathers shall be sold by tanners.

In order to enable the tanners to comply with the Board's regulations, the Federated Master Tanners of the Commonwealth met in conference, and drew up a schedule of maximum prices which they could profitably afford to pay for hides, in view of the fixation of the prices of their output, and which they agreed corporately and severally among themselves not to exceed when purchasing hides.

Frequent complaints are now being made by the tanners to this Board that certain tanners are breaking through their own agreement, and paying more than the scheduled prices for hides.

The hide prices referred to have never been gazetted under the Board's regulations, the matter seeming to be one which the tanners were capable of controlling themselves.

The Board is, however, interested in the strict observance of the tanners' schedule inasmuch as any latitude with regard to the prices of hides is apt to react detrimentally on the leather price-fixing scheme.

The Board has been in the habit, when complaints were made, of calling for returns from the parties complained of, showing prices paid, weights, to whom sold, etc., but up to the present has refrained from taking any action to enforce the schedule by restraining delinquents from further operations.

Opinion is now sought as to the Board's powers to take such action, and as to whether it would first be necessary to gazette the schedule of prices under the War Precautions (Leather Industries) Regulations 1917.

Regulation 5 of the War Precautions (Leather Industries) Regulations, Statutory Rules 1917, No. 100, gives the Board certain powers including the power to prohibit any person, firm or company either absolutely or subject to any specified condition or restriction from buying or selling hides or leather. I understand from the Commonwealth Government Hides and Leather Export that some or all of the tanners who are not buying at the scheduled prices for hides are not members of the Association which drew up the schedule, and that it cannot be conclusively proved in some cases that the tanners are aware of the prices fixed under that schedule. If it could be proved conclusively that the tanners were aware of the prices fixed by their representatives in conference, and that they had knowingly declined to observe those prices, the Board might perhaps be justified in exercising its powers under regulation 5, and prohibiting those tanners either absolutely or subject to conditions or restrictions from buying or selling hides.

But in the absence of such conclusive proof it would, I think, be better that the Board should make recommendations to the Minister for Defence regarding the prices to be fixed under the War Precautions (Prices) Regulations for hides, and upon these prices being fixed it would be competent either for the Board to prohibit any person, firm or company proved to have bought or sold hides at prices greater than the fixed prices from buying or selling hides, or for the Government to prosecute the person, firm or company for a breach of the War Precautions (Prices) Regulations.

[Vol. 15, p. 246]