AUSTRALIAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 April 1918, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN.

[PER peess association .-—copyright.]

PRICE OF GROCERIES

SYDNEY, April 27

The Inter-State Commission’s report on the price of groceries finds the higher prices are due, amongst other causes, to wasteful methods of distribution and the heightened spending power of the community owing to Government’s large war expenditure, a contributing cause being the dominating positions occupied by the associations of wholsesalo merchants. As instancing the absurd waste and unremunerated effort of capital in connection with a small grocery business, the report states sixty-nine representatives of shops in the metropolitan area, with a turn-over of £403,000, are conducted at a net loss of £1874. Only thirty-nine made a nett profit of £76 each. The Commission recommends cooperative enterprise with a view to cheapening prices. They found evidences, on the wholesale and manufacturing side, of trade organisation developing a rigid exclusiveness and threatening to harden into a monopoly.

NO MORE BUTTER WANTED

MELBOURNE, April 28

It is officially announced, that until further notice', no further purchases of butter will be made in Australia on behalf of tlie Imperial Government.

HARVEST PREPARATIONS. (Received This Day at 9.15 a.m.)

MELBOURNE, This Day,

In readiness for the forthcoming harvest, tho Federal Government are purchasing 60,000,000 corn sacks at a low price.

AUSTRALIAN CASUALTIES. MELBOURNE, '''his Day. The casualties to date total' 239,093, including 34,650 dead, and 120,447 wounded and 70,328 sick.