The new British mercury control covers the fixing of maximum prices. These are fixed at £48 a bottle for orders exceeding eleven bottles, £48 15s for smaller orders. The Ministry of Supply is offering metal from the stocks at £47 15s a bottle. These prices will establish direct contact of the Ministry of Supply with larger consumers, as too small a margin between the ministry's selling price and the wholesale maximum price would cause a loss to dealers buying from the ministry and selling to large consumers at £48. Trade transactions thus are confined to smaller business, below eleven bottles. This method, while assuring the ministry's control of the market, renders unnecessary the establishment of a large government selling agency to supply small users.
The first British maximum prices for mercury confirm the present weak position of the Italian-Spanish quicksilver cartel. These prices are 20 per cent below the official cartel quotations, although the cartel controlled more than four-fifths of the world's supply at the beginning of the war. Weakness in the cartel is due solely to last year's strong rise in the United States domestic production which assured Great Britain an alternative source of supply. The cartel, seriously perturbed by American competition, recently willingly sold 12,000 bottles to the British Government over the Anglo-Spanish clearing. account. British supplies consequently are the best in years, although in the early months of the war a serious shortage was expected because of the concentration of supplies in the Axis and countries friendly to the Axis. Here, obviously, the United States produced a serious economic defeat for the Axis which has Peacock Eggs to Appear On Wartime Menu Peacock eggs are likely to be the latest wartime delicacy, and will appear on the menus of a m of London restaurants, according io a correspondent of the "Evening Standard."
Before the war it was unheard of te eat peacock eggs. Breeders needed all the eggs they could get for Now the restrictions on feeding stuffs has made it impossible for breeders te hatch anything like as many eggs as normally-A Sussex breeder told me: "I have never heard of anyone eating peacock eggs before the war-have tried them. and they are very good. 3 "The mating season is due any time now.
"I shall not attempt to hatch any of the eggs, but shall use them all for f pes hen usually has about 13 ing-
eggs at a time. The price of the eggs in normal times for breeding purposes is anything from about 4s. 6d. to 10s. 6d. I don't know what the price of them is likely to be in restaurants."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.