Canada: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS: Aged in the Label

The advertisements in U.S. publications called Harwood’s blended Canadian whiskey “one of the treasures of all time.” Actually, hardly any Canadians had ever heard of it. But in the liquor-short U.S. there had been lots of Harwood’s right up on top of the counter for $6 and up a bottle, far more expensive than well-known Canadian and American whiskies. Last week Canadians were hearing quite a bit about Harwood’s.

In Vancouver, police swooped down on the East End Printers and Publishers, seized canceled checks and other documents, arrested two printers: Oswald Thomas, plant owner, and Robert Bracken, ex-owner. The charge: perjury. Their firm, said police, had printed price lists for Vancouver’s United Distillers of Canada Ltd., considered the largest independently owned distillery in Canada, makers of Harwood’s. These prices had been submitted to OPA in the U.S. as those in effect in December 1941 or January 1942, the base period for price ceilings. Using them as a base, OPA had set the U.S. price of Harwood’s at $19.05 a case (wholesale) and $6.44 a fifth, retail. But, contended police, the lists had actually been printed in 1944. The two printers refused to talk.

The arrests were prompted by an OPA investigation (Canadian and U.S. officials cooperate on price matters) after numerous U.S. liquor consumers complained about Harwood’s price. OPA, close-mouthed about the whole affair, was still trying to determine just when United Distillers began to make Harwood’s whiskey. Apparently, it was made only for export. Upwards of an estimated two million cases have been shipped across the border since 1944 to parched Americans.