FRESH LIGHT ON ENGLISH LIVING COSTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 13, 29 October 1948, Page 5

FRESH LIGHT ON ENGLISH LIVING COSTS

Manchester Man & Beacon Article There are a lot of people outside Whakatane who take a keen interest in our affairs and —be it said with coy blushes—in the Beacon itself. Latest titbit from our overseas fan mail is comment from a Manchester banker on English costs of living. He had read an article we printed some months back in which an English mechanical engineer, recently arrived here, made a comparison between costs in Whakatane and in his home town in England. Our banker friend says some of the figures do not tally with present costs in Manchester.

It seems, comparing these latest figures with those given us previously, that England, too, is caught in the mad whirl of the price and wage spiral. Instance is the rate of pay per hour for motor mechanics (our previous standard of comparison). Our engineer informant said it was 3/when he left England a little over a year ago. The man from Manchester says it is now 4/6.

But—and here’s the rub—whereas our earlier information was that a “utility” suit of clothes could be bought for £5 5/.-, they now range from £8 to £l2. Other differences are even more startling. Shirts, previously quoted as selling at 14/- now run from £1 to £2. Sports trousers, quoted by our earlier informant at £2, are how £4 4/-.

The rise in household linen is sharply marked. A pair of double sheets, the Manchester man says, cost from £2 to £4, whereas our earlier informant priced them at an average of £1 10/-. Double blankets in Manchester now cost anything up to £l2 a pair! But a utility grade can be bought for £3 3/-.

It would seem that there has been little change in food prices. He says our earlier figures are still substantially correct, but points out that certain foods are now subsidised by the Government, so that the people, when their taxes are considered, probably pay a good deal more for their foodstuffs than they suspect. Just whether these figures reveal a startling jump in the cost of living in England in the last year, or merely a huge discrepancy between the prices in various localities, he does not make clear, but the former would seem to be more likely than the latter when one considers how marked the differences are.