Excerpt from Report of the Attorney General for the Year Ending The work involved the interpretation of existing statutes as well as drafting, and assisting in the drafting of, new legislation. As in the past, we rendered opinions to the Governor on bills relating to legal matters coming before him for his signature. In addition to the handling by the staff of the great volume of business coming before the office in the ordinary course, the Division of Civil Rights and Liberties, and the Division of Consumer Counsel, both of which I established, continued their programs for the protection of the civil rights of citizens, and the protection of the consumer. Statements of the more important activities of those divisions, and of the other divisions and units of the department, are set forth below. Consumer Council and Division of Consumer Counsel. The Advisory Consumer Council consisting of ten leading economists and experts in the field of consumer problems which I appointed in 1958, continued its efforts on behalf of the consumer, and, working in conjunction with my Division of Consumer Counsel, concentrated on five main fields of activity, namely, (1) Milk, (2) Transportation, (3) Antitrust, (4) Consumer Fraud, (5) Public Utilities. Milk. As a result of the challenge by the Attorney General's Advisory Consumer Council of the legality of the price-fixing order entered by the Milk Control Commission, the commission made findings purporting to show continued need for price regulation of retail sales. Under the statutes, this finding had to be submitted to the Milk Regulation Board for review and approval. On July 1, the board met and by a 2-2 tie ended the price regulations. Several dealers then commenced a price war which threatened the financial security of the smaller dealers. Because the commission was unable or unwilling to stop these price wars, I called upon the Federal Trade Commission for assistance. In cooperation with my office, we developed sufficient facts to enable us to start actions at State and Federal levels to attempt to stop the unfair competition. Most of these cases were still pending at the end of the current fiscal year. Professor Philip Gamble, a member of the Consumer Council, and I appeared before a special Congressional Subcommittee on Small Business Problems in the Dairy Industry, to review for the committee the whole problem of milk control and milk prices in the Commonwealth. Also, with the concurrence of the Advisory Consumer Council, I announced my unalterable opposition to proposed legislation which would impose permanent milk price fixing in the greater Boston area. I again sponsored legislation to constitute the Consumer Council as a statutory body with rights to appeal rate decisions in the courts. This bill passed the House but was defeated in the Senate. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.