Cartels

The investigation had been going on quietly for a year and a half. Into Parliament's lap last week Justice Minister Louis Stephen St. Laurent dropped the 60-page, 30,000-word summary: a report on cartels, their effect on Canadians, what should be done about them. Chief investigator was Fred A. McGregor, Commissioner of Canada's Combines [Monopolies] Investigation Act. Examples of what be reported:

CJ U.S. and European producers of sulphur :--a vital Canadian import because it is used in the Dominion's big pulp industry --rigged the sulphur market to enable

U.S. producers to maintain a $16-a-ton price throughout the depression. P: An electrical cartel managed to manipulate the radio-tube business in such a way that "until 1939, Canadian consumers were deprived of low-priced radio sets of a type which had been available in the U.S. for a considerable period." P:When the U.S. General Electric Co. and the German Krupp interests made an agreement on the sale of cemented tungsten carbide (for machine tools), Canadian importers could buy it only from G.E., which raised the price from $50 a pound to $453. After the U.S. Government indicted G.E. in 1940 (antitrust law violation), the price skidded to $32 a pound.

The only people who benefit from such deals, said Investigator McGregor's report, are the producers: they are guaranteed exclusive markets and fixed, high prices. Canada, he found, has suffered because it is an exporting nation, and "cartel agreements are ... restrictive. . . ."

What Minister St. Laurent had to propose to Parliament was that it get busy putting down cartels. First step: appropriation of enough money to enforce antimonopoly laws inside Canada.

But because no country can deal single-handed with cartels, the report also proposed that Canada's Government work hard for establishment of an international body, probably somewhere in the United Nations Organization setup, to blot out cartels forever.

The next move: Parliament's.

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