THE COST OF LIVING

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 113, 5 February 1918, Page 6

THE COST OF LIVING

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Will you please allow me space in your valuable paper to publish this letter dealing with the price of meat iu Taihape (tor cash over the counter). The figures herein should impress your readers, also the Board of Trade and Sir Joseph Ward (who stated in his speech at Invercargill that he would shoot anyone who was making excess profits).

Our butchers in Taihape pay at the highest £18 for a .bullock that will dress 8001b. This beast cost £2 10s. to di'ovo and slaughter and cut up into the buyers' weights; £2 los. is allowed for profit on this one beast; therefore, the whole cost, including profit, would he £23 ss. The butchers put 6501b. of this meat over the block at 9d. per lb. for casli at counter, £24 7s. 6d.; 501b. of steak at Is. per lb, £2 10s.; 251b. of minced meat at Gd. per lb., 12s. Gd.; 251b. sausage meat at 9d. per lb.J 18s. 9d.; shins, tongue, kidneys, tripe, fat, and hide, £5; pigs' food, 10s., making a total of £34 os. 9d. for cash without any delivering. This includes bone, as we pay the same price for the boue as wo do for the meat. 'this.leaves the butchers an excess profit on one beast that will dress 8001b. of no less than £10 las. 9d. Cash delivered would be Id. per lb. more, and delivered booked 2d. more. So you will see that, averaging the counter cash and the delivered cash, the butchers will be making an excess profit over and above the £2 15s. profit already allowed him of £14. Excess profits in rents in Taihape since the declaration of war on all houses built pre-war is ss. per week over and above the taxes placed upon these, houses sinco war was declared. The tax placcd upon these old houses since war was declared is Is. per week. The rise in rent on an average, taking the small cottage and the large house, is 6s. per week. Therefore, you will see that the struggling tenant is paying the loyal landlords' extra tax and also ss. per week extra, which is equivalent to 1100 pel"cent, on the Is. (paid also by the tenant). This ss. per week is enough to pay the extra cost of living for the loyal landlord, or it takes up the Is. rise in wages to pay the extra rent, leaving nothing to pay the rise in necessaries of life. Yet our Cabinet Ministers tell us that there is no profiteering going on, when our butchers arp making anything from £10 to £14 on one beast and our landlords are making ss. per week on a Is. per week tax. which is already paid by the tenant. Some of the tenants have sons fighting for us, and while these lads have been fighting for these loyal landlords they in return raise the rent Gs. per week over these lads' aged parents' lieads. Some of these lads will never return. Still our Government tells us that these lads ham laid down their lives for their parents and for their King. This is not so, because I am safe in saying that our King and these lads' parents never sinned _so that their own children should give their precious blood. Our dear lads are giving their pure blood to save the land aggregator and the profiteer.—l am, C ' tc " J. T. DAVEY. Taihape, Fobruary 2.