WARTIME PRICES

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVII, Issue 21, 27 January 1943, Page 6

WARTIME PRICES

ITEMS OF FAMILY BUDGET. PROBLEM OF MEASUREMENT. The following comment has been made by Dr E. P. Neale, lecturer on statistics at Auckland University College, on the work of the Census and Statistics Department, referred to in a statement on stabilisation issued by the Auckland Trades Council of the New Zealand Federation of Labour. . . "All the Government Statistician has ever purported to do is to measure changes in the retail prices of some 210 commodities and services commonly bought by the workers, and between them constituting by far the greater part of the total expenditure of the average family. To include all minor items, such as caraway seeds, would add to the expenses of compilation, out of all proportion to the gain in accuracy. "The Trades Council is quite in error in stating that the retail price index takes no account of the relative importance of different items in the expenditures of the people. "The war has occasioned changes in the relative importance of the different items in the family budget far in excess of those that occurred during the preceding ten years, and a strong case can be made out for postponing revision of the 'weights' till conditions have settled down after the peace, though admittedly there is something to be said for attempting to compile a special wartime index based on the relative con-i sumptions of the different articles to-day, if those consumptions could be accurately assessed. "Such. and many another technical problem confront our Stabilisation Committee. Would a return of our exchanges to parity with London help stabilisation? If so, are there bther reasons why the change should not be made? It is, therefore, un•fortunate that no professional economists appear to be attached to the committee. I think I am correct in saying that at the moment only about one professional economist is helping the New Zealand Government — and as a meteorologist. How different is the position in Australia, where the Economic Record for December states: 'In the expansion of the war effort the Commonwealth tj-overnment continues to draw upon economic talent, the supply of which appears to be declining in the face of what appears to be a sustained demand.j' "