THE COST OF LIVING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5084, 4 February 1927, Page 3

THE COST OF LIVING.

NOW AND THEN. The following aragraph from an article by “Murihuku” in the Otago Witness seems to delineate the present, state of affairs so clearly and concisely as to be well worth reproduction. It reminds us of the saying <,f a post-war English writer who said that what was worrying the world was t>he high cost df luxuries : — “ ‘The provision of an adequate living wage.’ In this apparently simple statement is wrapped up a great deal of trouble. What is a. living wag*;’ And at once we come ,to the ‘standards of living.’ Even twenty years ago the people of Otago lived on a different scale as compared with today. Our fathers and mothers, lik® Thoreau, ‘made themselves rich by making their wants few.’ The plain, old-'fashioned oatmeal has been overwhelmed by 'fancy ‘cereals’ fjom Canada and the. United Stages ; ordinary folk used brown sugar for most purposes, and thought nothing of it; men smoked plug tobacco, and would have thought it madness —as it, probably is —to pay ninepeAce for ten cigarettes; ladies’ stockings are woollen no longer—they are not used f°'r warmth today, but. 'for decorative purposes. I don’t object to .this new fashion —I like it—but stockings that ‘ladder’ instead Of getting old-fashioned holes that could be darned ar§__expensive compared with what mother’s and sister’s used to be. We read more, books and magazines, we pay more for our newspapers than we. used to. We demand more —and the cost, of living gCie.s up. It is the spirit of the age. We want to play more, and we want to work less. The little houses and the simple furniture of yesterday are df no use to young couples starting out in 1927.”