COST OF LIVING

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 242, 1 July 1918, Page 8

COST OF LIVING

GLUT OF FOOD—AND HIGH PRICES A LABOUR COMPLAINT The cost of living is a topic upon which every Labour deputation which gains access to Ministers has something to Kay. More complaints iindor this head were made by a deputation from tho Timber 'Workers' Federation which waited on Ministers on .Saturday. They .had nothing very new to say about the subject. Tho chief grievance was that white the cold stores of the country were full of food the people of the country wero being charged such prices for theso commodities that they could scarce afford to buy them. One of the delegates predicted that the moat and butter would be held in stores until there was a slump nnd a fall in prices. Tho Hon. Air. Mac Donald: That won't help the workers of this country. Mr. D. Phelnn: It will help to reduce the cost of living anvhow. Mr. Mac Donald said that the Government realised that the cost of living was a very important matter to the workers of New Zealand, and indeed to the great majority of tho pcoplo of the' country. Bveryono had to admit that it was very difficult even to hold prices in war lime. Notwithstanding those difficulties the Government had succeeded in holding prices for rather moro than twelve months. Ho would point out to the deputation that the meat in stores throughout the country was the property of the Imperial Government, purchased by them under agreement. When the prices, which wero certainly not excessive, wero agreed upon, and pastoralists purchased their stock on these values, and thero could be no reduction of prices even for the local market without great complications and hardships. At some of the Wellington shops people who would go for their own meat could buy at prices which were very little in advance of thoso paid for meat by the Imperial Government. It would not bo possible to reduce those prices. He claimed that the Board of Trade had done remarkably good work in holding prices for the past year.. He admitted, as all Ministers would readily admit, that the high cost of living was a burden to the workers of this country, but it was not possible to do more to regulate tho prices of imported goods,' and ho had referred to the difficulties regarding goods locally produced. .