Sweet Justice

Britons buy more sweets than tea. In fact, at an average 25 Ibs. each per year, they are the world's most dedicated candy eaters. Hence the excitement last week after a decree handed down at London's Queen's Bench Court. There, concluding 43 days of hearings on the question of continued fixed retail prices in the candy industry, a panel of bewigged judges decided that they should be unfixed. Britain's five major candymakers--George Bassett & Co. Ltd., Cadbury Brothers Ltd., J.S. Fry & Sons Ltd., John Mackintosh & Sons Ltd., and Rowntree & Co. Ltd.--were ordered to end resale price maintenance. Hardly was the sense of the 45-minute decision clear when supermarkets, alerted by telephone, cut candy prices by as much as 25%. As the word spread, Britons went off on binges of toffee, chocs and boiled sweets.

The orgy is expected to be brief, but the consequences of last week's decision will not be. Doctors and dentists are already complaining that cheaper candy will broaden waistlines and decay teeth. Beyond that, lower supermarket prices will probably mean an end to many of the 60,000 little neighborhood shops, which include sweets among their sundries, and last year accounted for 48% of Britain's candy sales. Most important, the candy case is the first in a series on the docket of the Restrictive Practices Court. The court is now scheduled to rule on price fixing of toys and games, footwear, cosmetics and cigarettes under the 1964 Resale Prices Act, and it probably will abolish or limit fixed prices in those and other fields too.

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