Box 99
Sir: 'Leslie Adrian' (20 June) suggests that a British Department of Consumer and Cor- porate Affairs be set up on the Canadian model. In the strict sense, his (or her?) plea is unlikely to fall on deaf ears, for Mr Heath was himself responsible for the abolition of resale price maintenance and, I believe, for the Hire Purchase Act of 1964 which im- posed restrictions on doorstep salesmen.
At the risk of introducing a jarring note into this discussion, however, 1 would like to point out that further measures to protect consumers run the risk of boomeranging. It is not much use protecting the housewife against her propensity to purchase goods she does not want when the effect of giving that protection may be simply to put her husband out of work. This may sound paradoxical. but one indirect result of the 1964 Act was to force both the major UK encyclopaedias to cut back not only their selling, but also their research staff; and the Encyclopaedia Britan- nica now prints solely in America. It is at least arguable that 'inertia selling' is 3 minor nuisance which can be dealt with under the existing law (see Bowes Egan. The Customer and The Law, Constable, 1969, pp 96-971. The setting up of a central consumer pro- tection
department may be appropriate for a country which is dominated by big business but not. 1 submit, in one such as ours where the citizen is cosseted from the cradle to the grave.
George Cliowdharay-Best 174 Clay Hill Road. Basildon. Essex
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