The Water Tube Boilermakers’ Association Agreement and Trial

Abstract

The proof of evidence of P. W. S. Andrews tendered on behalf of the Water Tube Boilermakers’ Association in the Restrictive Practices Court¹ may be considered a self-contained document in that it analyses the economic characteristics of the industry, and the present and likely future circumstances of the industry, before discussing the working of the agreement. I have included, as an appendix, the note he also submitted to the Court, when proofs had been exchanged, on the proof of evidence of Professor Pool, the economist called by the Registrar. Professor Pool’s proof was largely concerned with rebutting the respondents’ claims as set forth in their Statement of Case and discusses the price restrictions from the point of view of general economic theory. He laid no claim to first-hand knowledge of the industry — and, indeed, made it something of a point of principle not to have met and talked with any boilermakers (Transcript of Proceedings, Day 9, pp. 51–2). The difference in type of proof is partly due to the different role of anyone appearing for the respondents, on whom lies the onus of proof and who have to prove the ‘exceptional’ nature of their case, and that of the Registrar, who need not do more than rehearse a general presumption; but partly it is also due to Philip Andrews’s particular approach to industry which involved him getting to understand it from the inside.