Up to this point there can be no particular objection
to the Bill. It is better that attention should be directed to detecting " profiteering " on the grand scale than to intimidating the unhappy small retailer. At the same time it is difficult to see that the Board of Trade Tribunal will accomplish any purpose that might not have been accomplished by the torpedoed Select Committee. In addition to the Central Tribunal there will be local bodies to which purchasers who think they are being victimized or swindled by shopkeepers can apply for redress of their grievances. In his original statement about the Bill before the Select Committee, Sir Auckland Geddes said that these local bodies would have the power to fine shopkeepers, and further to send on bad oases to Courts of Summary Juris- diction, where fines up to £200 and also sentences of imprisonment could be inflicted. In the new form of the Bill the power of the local Committees to act as little Soviets, making the lives of small tradesmen a burden to them and paralysing their trade, has been modified. Nevertheless it remains great.
