THE COST OF LIVING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1534, 2 September 1912, Page 4

THE COST OF LIVING.

Length rather than cither depth ov breadth is tho main feature of the report of the Cost of Living Commission. rhe huge volume which represents the labours of the Commission contains a groat maliy interesting facts and statistics,, a great deal of sound economic argument, and a gloat dqal that will be called unsound, but it suggests no remedies which could not have been suggested, and, indeed, were suggested, long before the Commission was appointed. Much of what the Commission says concerning the factors in the increasdisproportion between people's desires and the means of satisfying those desiros has been steadily preached by The Dominion, but doubtless the public will the more readily accept obvious enough truths when they are^affirmed by something that looks like an authoritative Bench. The wide range of the Commission's investigations precludes anything, like a full survey of its report in a single article, as it precluded anything like, the deep probing essential to such a task as the Commission undertook. At the same time some of the causes of the disoontent of the people are so plain that they emerge automatically from any general statement of the axioms of political economy. The first, and main, cause, could have been summed up by the Commission in a dozen words: The nation has for many years been living much above its means. Public extravagance has not only stimulated private extravagance by example, but has encouraged— perhaps unconsciously encouraged— private extravagance as a sort of moral support for itself. It is, _ indeed, only upon this point—the increase in the standard of living—that tho Commission is clear and emphatic. Its investigation of the other factors in the problem is not satisfactory. Particularly is this tho case in respect of the effect of the industrial legislation of the. past couple of decades. Here no attempt is made to pursue through all its workings that restriction of free production which is the purpose of nearly every line, of our labour laws, and yet it is here that investigation was most necessary if the object of the Commission was a cure of our economic ills and not a mere patching up Of tho patient. Tho most important causes of the increasing cost of living, to our mind, are: Public and private extravagance, the devotion of an increasing proportion of wealth to non-productive uses, increased taxation, restrictive labour laws, an unscientific distributing system, the tariff and its resultant forcing of capital and labour into tho wrong channels, and, above all, the enormous and excessive public borrowings. For the restoration of saner ideas upon wealth and consumption the Commission appears to rely upon education. There is cc»tainly abundant room for the teaching of the elementary facts of eco--nomics, in a country in which a majority of even the legislators have for years solemnly and sincerely acted upon beliefs hardly less preposterous, in many cases, than would be the belief that two and two make five. We have often urged the necessity for the propagation of sound ideas upon consumption and production, and wo approve with all our heart the Commission's recommendations in this direction. But just as it was a reckless and improvident financial policy that produced, and led the people themselves privately to aggravate, over-consumption, so nothing is more likely to forward the restoration of sound economic and social conditions than prudent and economical government, of that kind in which example goes hand in hand with precept. How could the man in the street be expected to set any value upon the contentions of thosls critics who warned the public to go' slow, when the whole force of the late Government was directed towards persuading the public that in every respect the outlook was even more magnificent than the magnificent conditions existing'?

The actual recommendations of the Commission, although they do not in most eases follow naturally from the findings—there is more 'than one reall.v remarkable von xeqtiihtr—are in the main sensible enough. AYo have referred to the necessity for attack 011 tho education side. The Commission's treatment of Lhe question of so-called "monopolies'' wo must leave over for the moment, but nobody can object to the pronriet.y of making effective the. law against combinations in restraint of trade. 'Che recommendations respecting land are of epecial interest. No doubt thfi.

anti-ngrarian /action looked forward to a declaration that it is really "the man on the land" who is at the bottom of the truublc, nud tlioy will l:e disappointed to find that the Commission failed to discover anything worth discovering. All it can say, in the single page it has written on the point, is that "there is good reason for believing that the increase of land values is creating a class of non-productive middlemen. This did not prevent tho Commission from making several recommendations, some quite sensible and good (such as the extension of village settlements) and some quite noxious. In order "to_ break .down land monopoly" it is recommended that there should, lie "such a taxation of land | values as shall secure to the State a portion of the value created by the State whilst guaranteeing to the landowner the full fruits of his own industry, and to ensure to the community the most economical distribution of the fund thus built up." It had not been attempted to show that such a tiling as "land monopoly" existed, and it is not surprising that four of the eight members of tho Commission, including Dn. Hight (to whom the Coinmission was_ indebted for its generally clear dissertations on various aspects of the economic laws), dissent from this crude sop to tho Radical enemies of the farmer. The failure of the Commission to investigate fully the effect of restrictive labour legislation, and its failure to study at all the policy of heavy borrowing, would by themselves render the Deport inadequate and of no great value. Perhaps, however, the Iteport is as good as could be expected in view of the absurdly ihort time that went to its making, and it may justify the expenditure upon it if it leads the public to realise, in many cases for the first time, that a nation cannot constimo more than it produces, and that a borrowing country must produce far more than it consumes if it is to have any'real comfort at all.