THE COST OF LIVING.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1216, 26 August 1911, Page 14

THE COST OF LIVING.

Sir,—You were good enough to find space in your valuable columns for my previous - letter detailing prices paid here this winter for tho necessaries of lifewill you add further to the obligation and print tho prices paid at the same period in New South Wales, and can anyone explain why there should bo such a difference? Take mutton first, forequarters 2d. lb., hindquarters 2Jd., sides 2Jd., sausages 3d., beef 3d., and all excellent meat. Butter: Good dairy Is., eggs Is. 2d. ner dozen, bread 3d. and 3!d. per 21b. loaf, milk, which rose to Gd. per quart here, is there obtainable for 3d. These foregoing prices we paid in a country town'fifty miles from Sydney. The meat was obtained twico a week from tho city, and I see by tho advertisements that wages are much the same as here, and. in some cases, more. I have been in this Dominion nearly thirty years, and never havo 1 found the problem so hard as it is now to make ends meet. There is a rise in the price of everything. Why should we be so heavily taxed for food the last few years, and under a so-called Liberal Government? Sir Joseph Ward informed one of his audiences at Home that we in New Zealand laughed at debt. I wish I coidd. but I have still a conscience. I am not a follower of his Government, Another thing I should liko to knowDid Sir John Findlay really bellcvo in the eulogistic utterances he gave about this Dominion that poverty and crimes were almost unknown? What about the Charitable Aid Boards and other institutions of tho kind; the increase of sexual crimes; the overcrowded mental hospitals; the ' boats . crowded with people leaving here? Are those signs of prosperity? When will the people see what a heavy incubus they are supporting, and over whom they have no control, and let us have men oT integrity and open, straightforwardness who will make tho interest of tho people of this country their interest; not the self-seeking, self-enriching men who thoroughly deserve the title nf professional politicians, and whose sole aim seems to be "peace at any price," ni'd who do justify their existence as guardians of this young nation's welfare. "God's own country"—what a misnomer. -I am, etc., BEFOKM. Taihapo.