HIGH PRICES DEBATE

Hokitika Guardian, 19 March 1920, Page 2

HIGH PRICES DEBATE

AI'STRAtdAN & N,Z. CABI.E ASSOCIATION] (Imperial Newsservice). I?er«'i\.'d This Pm nth. 45 a.m.) LONDON, March 15. In the House of Commons, when intuiting a debate on high prices, Mr MaoCiirdv, on behalf of the Ministry of Food, emphasised the greatness of the destruction of material wealth during war time, and pointed out that 1919 should have been a year of work at full pressure.. He had been disappointed, •veil in the ease of Airiest, which suffered less through the war than other

1 great industrial countries. Ho quoted statistics showing the drop in production in Africa, immediately after the armistice. He pointed out the number if trade disputes in the United Kingdom in 1919, involving a stoppage of work which was greater than in any vear since 1913, while the total who were rendered idle was a record for over thirty years. The average number of working days lost during the war wns over 34,000^000. Mr McCurdy emphasised the preponderating cause of high prices *was that the world supplies were unequal to the demands. Hitherto there had

been no adequate effort on the pait of the peoples of the world to make good the material losses during the war, or provide necessities for the future. Mr MacCurdy declared the system of profi-

teering was a check upon production, a cause of industrial unrest, and a menace to social and political stability in every country in Europe at present. The Government’s policy during the past year had been, as far ns possible, to abolish economic control and substitute a policy of close investigation of the question of supplies, c.ost of production, and profits, followed by an endeavour in consultation with trade, interests concerned, to bring pressure to bear without the use of compulsion, if possible, to reach a friendly agreement in regard to what was n fair, reasonable profit for the year’s strenuous work. Hon H. Asquith described the Allied economic memorandum as an admirable

document. Some practical proposals in it were welcome, though belated. The memorandum appeared somewhat truncated, arousing a suspicion that the sting in its tail was amputated by expert political surgeons in Paris, and. he declared the sooner Government’s economic control was abolished the better, and the same might be said even more strong.lv in rrd to the system of subsidin' lie was strongly of opinion that the taxes would be much better expended in reducing -the debt, than in trying to shelter the consumer from the inevitable burden of high prices.