278 WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 
price; but the administration of the law was a matter 
of extreme difficulty. Whether such was recognised by 
the Government is a matter for speculation. There is 
certainly no doubt that no serious attempt was made to 
enforce the law rigorously. Failure was admitted by 
the Government, but the Prime Minister in making the 
admission attributed it to the fact that regulation of 
economic forces is no greater a possibility than con- 
trolling ‘‘the laws of the universe.’’ But New Zealand 
has not been alone in price-fixing experiments. In 
Australia the policy of price fixation has been adopted 
on a fairly large scale by all the States except 
Tasmania, and latterly by the Federal Government. 
The methods adopted have been two-fold; first, direct 
price-fixing legislation ; and secondly, indirect legislation, 
such as anti-trust legislation, state purchasing, or state 
marketing. The former method has been the most 
common. In a recent work on Price Fixing in Australia, 
Mr. H. L. Wilkinson concludes that the policy has 
not been successful. ‘‘When the legislation was first 
proposed, and the price-fixing tribunals began their 
operations, only the ultra-conservative section of the 
Australian people opposed price fixing, or were openly 
doubtful of its efficacy. After some two years of the 
operations of the policy, it has become generally recog- 
nised that, although fixing maximum rates may keep 
prices down for the time being, it has not to any appreci- 
able extent, at any rate, prevented a very large increase 
in the cost of living throughout the Commonwealth. 
The more strenuous advocates of the policy point to 
certain conspicuous successes, and put its apparent 
failure in other cases down to incapacity or want of 
energy on the part of the price-fixing tribunals or the 
Governments, but the mass of the people have become 
very sceptical as to the policy being of much advan- 
tage to them in the long run.’’ Undoubtedly the policy 
has prevented certain forms of exploitation, and has 
