The Government of India propose to establish a central organization to buy all stores, whether imported or not, which they require either for general purposes or for the State railways. It is possible that the railway companies will also come into the scheme, and the local governments, the native States, and municipalities can come into it, too, if they wish. Prima facie, this should result in considerable economies being effected, but after ithe experience they had during the war the business men of this country at any rate will not expect such a result. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce does not expect it either. The members of that body may be interested parties to some extent, but the reasons they have placed before the Government of India will for the' most part stand the test of scrutiny. It is necessary, they say, to consider what the effect will be on trading interests generally. The dimi nation of competition among buyers might also lead to its elimination among sellers, as the tendency would be to concentrate the orders given among a few sellers. The result might be the establishment of a selling monopoly and the raising of prices to a higher level than would otherwise exist.
There will certainly, the Chamber says, be great delay in dealing with the orders, for a big _undertaking such as the Stores Department will be must inevitably tend to become cirewmlocutory, and, besides this, sellers and consumers will be completely out of touch with each other. No country can be really prosperous without a large import as well as a Targe export trade, and in India, where the balance of trade is usually in favour of the Dependency, the imports merchants have functions of considerable importance. They carry large stocks which they have brought out with an intimate knowledge of the needs of the country, but if the largest buyer is to go past them they will be unable to meet the requirements of trade with the same efficiency as in the past. The inadequacy of the stocks might then, it is suggested, lead to violent local fluctuations of prices, and in times of national necessity the Government might be unable either to purchase or '0 commander the stores they required. The Chamber's last word is support of a proposal by the Calcutta Import Trade Association that the stores organization should make it a rule to invite public tenders for all purchases above a limit of, say, Rs. 5,000, and open the tenders received in the presence of any of the tenders who wished to be there. They are not likely, we think, to improve upon that system by establishing a huge buying organization, controlled by officials whose salaries, the Chamber of Commerce is disposed to think, will not be commensurate with their responsibilities.—Manchester Guardian."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.