SOARING PRICES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 127, 23 February 1920, Page 8

SOARING PRICES

' PUBLIC INDIGNATION AROUSED

SEWING COTTON AND TOBACCO

RAISED AGAIN

By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright • (Eec. February 21, 5.5 p.m.) London, February 18. Ever-soaring prices are exciting public indignation. Tho reel of cotton has advanced 2}d. to 10d., although J. and P. Coats made a profit of ,£3,950,000 last rear. Prices of cigarettes, cigars, and tobacco have again advanced, though the Imperial Tobacco Company in 1919 made a profit of .£4,662,000. 'Clothing is tendins -upward, also butter, and fares by taxienbs. trams, and buses. Almost the onlv item that is cheaper is eggs, which are. being retailed, at threepence, instead of fivepence during war time.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Awn.

fA cable messnge published on Saturday stated that the Profiteering Act Subcommittee which inquired respecting the alleged sewing cotton combine, reported, after \ exhaustive inquiries, that the manufacture of sewing cotton was virtunllv the monopoly of the Coats firm, which had taken advantage of its monopolv to restrict trade, making it extremely difficult for competing firms to obtain a footing. Coats, last September, estimated that the total manufacturing sellimr costs amounted to 3.83 d. per reel, and in view of that the advancement of the retail selling price to 7Jd., was hardly iustifiable.f. The retail price should not exceed Gd. per ree.l. Coats increased their net profit per reel by 168 per cent, between 19U and 1919. The subcommittee however, was of opinion that when Coats's present supplies of raw manufactured cotton were exhausted the price of sewing cotton must rise, unless the ■price of cotton fell.]