ABSTRACT
The threatened ranks of retailers turned to organisation to protect their interests and to fend off hostile developments. The advocacy of resale price maintenance as a device to raise margins and to arrest the advance of price-cutting competitors became widespread and organised. Resale price maintenance was not only one of the restrictive practices which became subject to scrutiny in the course of major inquiries into particular industries; it was also singled out for special investigation and, eventually, in 1956 and 1964, for special legislation. The monopolies legislation of 1948 entrusted the Monopolies Commission with the task of investigating monopoly conditions in the particular industries referred to it; several of these individual- industry reports have been considered. The Commission discovered that more than half the tea supplied in the United Kingdom was subject to individual rpm, and that the degree of enforcement varied.
