Since the publication on August 7 of the second Special Bulletin of the S.MC. Price Investigation Office, the collection of information relating to stocks and prices of basic commodities has progressed satisfactorily, the main effort being concentrated on the retail side of the problem. Meetings, during which the question of "reasonable profits" in the various trades has been frankly discussed, have been held with representatives of provision merchants, fish dealers, butchers, coal and wheat merchants.
Willingness to ce-operate with the Council has been the keynote of these meetings, and a number of checkings of retail prices already completed have, with few exceptions, shown that the information supplied has been correct. Considering, however, that nearly every item on the lst of basic commodities is a problem in itself, the task of checking is of such magnitude that considerably more time is required before generalization is advisable.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.