§ Major Procterasked the Minister of Fuel and Power why, in view of the additional 1s. per ton to the price of coal, merchants are permitted to add 1d. per hundredweight as well; and whether he will arrange for increases in the price of coal to be made to sums easily imposed on single bags of coal, without leaving the merchant a margin to which he is not entitled?
Major Lloyd GeorgeIt is only in a minority of cases that coal merchants are permitted to increase the price of coal by one penny per cwt. on the occasion of a general price increase of 1s. a ton; such increase is in lieu of and not in addition to the general increase. When there is a general increase of 1s. a ton, the most usual increase is a half-penny per hundredweight, but in some districts, including London, alterations of less than one penny per hundredweight are not customary, and in such districts there is either no alteration at all or else an increase of one penny. In general, the hundredweight prices bear a definite relationship to the ton prices and, in calculating the former, account is taken of any gains or losses to the merchants on 307W their hundredweight prices arising out of previous alterations in the ton prices. On the second part of the Question, increases have to be given from time to time to meet increases in cost of production and these are rarely susceptible of precise translation into hundredweight prices.