HIGH PRICES.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 705, 29 December 1902, Page 3

HIGH PRICES.

The rate ot wages, the prices o i Tircad, meal/, land, wool, tmitcr, coal, ana iirewootl nave all gone up ; put, will tiie prevailing high prices last iThc consumer hopes that ; liey will not last,, hut tiie producer devoutly hopes .that they will continue. miring the past decade, the consumer has had a good innings with low prices all round, hut now the pendulum appears, to swing in the direction of the producer The consumer was the lat man and the .producer the thin man , now the whirligig of events points to the producer as the lat man and the consumer as the thin one. One good turn deserves- another, and the consumer had better inane up iiis unuu against howling. -Neither Government nor individual can altogether help prices going down wuen they are on a uown grace, nor revent them from going up when they are on an lip grade. The idea that a Government is a benevolent potentate, raising prices with one hand anu lowering them with the other, is a manifest absurdity.. Government unnering has its limit's ; Put the eternal law ol supply and demand is the dominant factor, aml determines tho market price of all commodities. .Wages have risen—not because we have an Arbitration Court, hut oecatisc the evidence brought before that Court proved that .they, ought to rise. The Arbitration is a machine devised to both increase and lower wages—or, in olncr word-., to ascertain tiie market value of labor and to steady it. As for dear bread, the town demand" has at last overtaken the country supply, and so wheat must keep dearer. It may take

year or two to reverse the position by planting larger areas of wneat; but this will take a season or two to ’ccomplish, anil in the meantime Treat, will remain dear. Meat also will be dear for two or three years , the col ony is Understocked, and it cauliotge, overstocked at short notice, Dear meat has come to stay for a considerable time. Wool has been down for seven lean years—a long seven years , because the supply was in excess of the demand. Now ho hoot is on tli„ other, leg, and there may nc seven fat years for the wool grower. It toon wool a, long time to reach a record low prico ; and wo fancy that it will take wooi a long time to reach a record high price. Wool has only just started on tiie up grade ; it may fluctuate in value, hut die general tendency should he for it to rise ‘in price for somo years to come. Land wiii necessarily remain dear for some years to come, and will pay good profits. Conditions are fixed practically for several years ahead of us. As a whole, they arc fairly comfortable ones ; hut one or two perhaps are uncomfortable for almost every man. .Should lie al ter them—and that means, in many minds, “ geLting Mr Seddon to alter them 7” No ; for, m the first place, Mr Seddon cannot materially alter them, for they arc beyond his control, and, in the second Diace, it is easier for a man to adjust himself to pro vailing conditions than it is to alter the conditions. High prices bavo Come to stay.—Wairarapa I’imes.