HIGH COST OF LIVING

Hokitika Guardian, 2 March 1920, Page 3

HIGH COST OF LIVING

“ Mercantile Gazette.”) A very great deal of printer’s ink lui ; been used in the attempt to prove tha ' the high cost of living throughout th J world is due entirely to artificial causes j, the principal of which, according t many writers, is the inflation of tin .currency by voluminous issues of pape , money, and these writers urge that, i t the extra, volume of currency is reduc ed, the prices will rapidly trend down ward. IVe are not prepared to den} that possibly to some small extenl one of Hie causes of inflation has been due to the excess of paper credits ) issued by the different governments. ) Other good people put the whole of the . | trouble down to profiteering, so called, s but avaricious shopkeepers are not rc- ; sponsible for any but the most ini finitesimal fraction of the increased cost. So small,, indeed, is this /actor that, that had every trader been content with the most reasonable rate of profit, the price of commodities would have been the same, although it must

be conceded that in some individual cases, Coats and Co’s cottpns, the Tobacco Trust’s operations, to give two tho profits made would indicate that - the public has been unfairly exploited, i Tho real cause of everything being j excessively dear throughout the world e at the present lime is due to the operas tion of the laws of supply and demand, i and nothing else. During the war, millions of men instead of producing wealth, were engaged in destroying everything of value. For nearly five years, those workers, who had before the war been devoting their skill and , energy £o keeping the world’s reserve of’everything up to high water mark, , were suddenly taken away and put into r the battle line. No one remained to ’ perform their work with half the efficiency they possessed ,nnd consequently an immense shortage in everything followed. Then, as suddenly, an immense ’ demand for war purposes arose, everything directly and indirectly required for clothing, feeding and transporting huge bodies of men, and for providing them with all that was wanted in the | field to overcome the enemy was required. irrespective of cost. Price was no object, at whatever cost. that which was required must be obtained to win the war, and this was the one and only . essential, price could not count. We bad . millions of men in the armies who had , been producing, now had to be kept by . the labour of others, millions of others whp/Were engaged in the rear lines, and who had also been withdrawn. Is it any wonder that all these commodities , which were required to supply these ■ men with the necessaries of life suddenly became dearer ? In every grade of life the increased cost of the prime necessaries reacted, the extra price of food compelled everyone who could employ labour to pay a higher price, then ships became scarce, from reasons everyone knows, the exigencies of the Avar produced an eA r er and ever increasing demand for material with which to fight the enemy, fabulous j wages bad to be paid, which again eon- j tributed to the higher cost of living, j Then just as suddenly the war finished, J and a great many expected that with j the cessation df hostilities prices AA'ould fall to pre-war rates within a very short j time, and have been disappointed, because, up to the present the tendency seems to be the other Ava.v. But it must, j 1 be remembered that millions of men J Avhoso labour avus usefully employed, j have been killed, a great p umber have ; ‘ been rendered unfit to continue the Avork ! in Avbicb they Avere engaged before the J : war, and all the raw material which is i required has increased in cost. i * Then again, industrial troubles have : ' tremendously interferred with produe- j 1 tion, England in the eight months end- ; ; ing 31st August, according to figures * published in “The Morning Post,” of ( 1 December 6th. exported merchandise to ' the value of £380,000,000 against the ( United States, which sent out, during . the same months, considerably over j £1,000,000.000 sterling. During these ' months the AA’orknien of England were | trying to lay doAvn the principle that in. J dustrinl success is compatible with the , < smallest amount of work coupled with ) the highest posible ratio of pay, and | : the result of this doctrine is shoAvn in j < our export figures. If anything is in ') demand ,the greater the supplies offer- j j ed, the lower falls the price, and the re- j j verse follows if one AA-ants to keep up ( the price, shorten offerings, and so it c must be throughout tho Avorld. $ The one and only way to bring down | ] prices is for everyone to produce all that is possible Avhen that it done the profiteer will be a negative quantity.