COST OF LIVING IN FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 94, 15 January 1919, Page 5

COST OF LIVING IN FRANCE

The Paris correspondent.of the "Morning Post" writes tnat the extremely serir ous increase in,the cost of living, not merely in Paris, but throughout I'rauce, may to some extent bo gauged .by the substantial character of the proposals for an increase in the pay of military and civilian employees of the State which are embodied in a Bill to, be laid before the Chamber, which has been approved by the Council of Ministers. Under this Bill all civilian public servants drawing salaries under twelve thousand francs (about .£IBO a year) will receive additional war pay of two francs a day, This increase will also be given, to unmarried civil servantswhoare mobilised and have parents,• brothers, sisters, nephews -or nieces dependent on them. 7 All mobilised' men drawing their pay monthly—that is to say, all officers—will be given, in' addk tion to the present allowances for their families, an extra sixty francs, or 483. per. month, in respect of each child. Further, tho present salary limits are to be. abolished,. and the benefits of the existing allowances made in respect of families ara to be extended to all classes of men regardless of pay. The total cost to tha' country of these increased allowances is estimated at about'twenty millions sterling. The new scale of allowances, it'is' proposed, shall date as from the beginning of July last,

Minister' of Finance* announced that the. Government ivill tako vigorously in hand the question of atop, ping the scandalous artificial increase in the prices of all necessaries in the way of foodstuffs, which have assumed almost monstrous proportions. Taking that the only effective Temedy will be to suppress the .'abusive profits of intermediaries, the Government has appointed an inter-Ministerial Committee to study the best means of placing at the dis-' posal of the population of the country, under the best' conditions of price finality, all necessaries in the way of fonrlsfnffs. •

M. Boret, the Food Controller, is known to have contemplated for several months nast the wholesale requisitioning of a large proportion of the foodstuffs in the country, and the rapacity of the average French tradesman during the past few weeks has been such that any step in this direction would undoubtedly be welcomed by the'great mass of tho public. .