_COnSunter Protection the Common Market Correlli Barnett, D. A. Jackson

The Lawrence Myth Anne Scott

Don't Bank On It Frederick Street,

Rev. Austin Lee, Lawrence Wright -One-Way Schemes G. L. Heygate IJS Passports W. D. Paden Not Talking About Jerusalem

e Of the People R. Al. Bloinfield, G. Reichardt Som . t,

Teaching Chinese Robert Blake

. .Edgar Mark

J. T. Molony

CONSUMER PROTECTION Committee on Consumer Protection, -"ose Final Report was commented upon by your correspondent Mr. Leslie Adrian in the issue of t•,,lignst 3, do not wish to engage in public disputa- ;4'4' to explain the working of the Committee, to 'I-IstifY its conclusions or to refute criticism. All that the Committee desire to say is in its Report and it is content to have its efforts and opinions judged by those who choose to read it. Mr• Adrian refers to having had a 'preliminary :Pugh through' the Report. As a result no doubt cursory reading his article contains a number of Z4loal errors. I ignore matters solely, of comment 0 (disparaging references to the Committee. I am Y concerned, as Chairman of the Committee, to caorrect mis-statements of fact and thus avoid in- Fcurate assertions obtaining currency and giving nse to a faulty picture of what the Committee did et.and at it has recommended. I refer to these errors M, r. Adrian in the order in which the points occur tne Report. '11 Mr. Adrian writes, of course, the voice of the ■ ;onsurner

was heard only through the handful of

incials • . . from the consumer organisations.' This ft.I3n8. In addition to evidence from the Citizens' • .rouvIce

Bureaux we had nearly 2,000 letters from

k embers of the public (Report page iii), over 1,000 Zing about" shoddy goods (paragraph eighty-two). "e would have liked to have had more (paragraph hrteen). (21 lor. Adrian states with reference to resale price

ntenance that the Committee, after receiving

Z dis- Piragernent from the President of the Board of ade 'bravely decided to discuss it, however, but there beset with doubts about its inclusion within r terms of reference, doubts that, apparently, had

Rot

t.nv viously assailed them.' This is a complete rap" ersio of what is recorded in the Report (para- eo.h seven). We did not discuss it or decide to do the quite the opposite. The reason was that from 43utsei the majority of the Committee thought t—hies s!..hiect was outside our terms of reference and "e'' appeared to be shared by the President. ta unlY other reference to resale price maintenance oil° Paragraph 902 where we mention it as a subject jnnsutner interest possibly requiring action. (N21 Mr. Adrian asserts that 'the only way to stop pro-R,eanding advertising) is to punish the people who talk"' irom it . . apart from some legalistic double- offe,.,," the Merchandise Marks Act [the Committee] tioe" no concrete solution.' A superficial examina- kar,_°E °Ur Proposals for amendment of Merchandise ree "'s law should reveal that we wholeheartedly 01(3'117/lend precisely what Mr. Adrian advocates terrt Paragraphs 663, 756, 766 and 794). Again, in the same passage it is said 'the team Prr,v,cleates on the merits and shortcomings of the fn truth the Committee says it does not like

the Federal Trade Commission model which is not equivocation ..(Report paragraph 794).

(5) Mr. Adrian writes that ,`the battle against the crafty and careless in the service industries . . . is still for the voluntary associations and their backers to carry on.' Paragraph 875 records that the Com- mittee thought and recommended that, the proposed (and now projected) Consumer Council should interest itself in the fertile field of consumer services. Paragraphs one, four and five explain why the Com- mittee did not do so itself.

It will be evident from the foregoing that Mr. Adrian's reading of the Report was incomplete and inaccurate and that in consequence a number of his comments Convey -a misleading impression of the Committee's attitudes and opinions. I trust that, in fairness to the Committee, this letter will receive the courtesy of year columns.