THE COST OF LIVING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1403, 27 May 1915, Page 4

THE COST OF LIVING.

The cost ol living was a very live question in New Zealand even in 1908, when Sir Joseph Ward was Prime Minister. In delivering a policy speech in the Royal Albert Hall, at Auckland, on Friday, February 7th, of that year, Sir Joseph was at some pains to controvert a statement that the increased cost of living in New Zealand was due to the operations of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. As reported in the Auckland Star, he said that “if the rise was due to the rise in wages, then, assuming wages had risen in the absence of the Act, the same increase in prices would have followed. If the wages would not have risen in the absence of the Act, then the Act had at least secured an increase of wages to meet the Increased prices.” The reasoning is neither clear ncr conclusive, because the Act was in operation, and had been for several years. But Sir Joseph went further, and pointed out that the price of necessaries had been increasing in England, and was much higher then than it was ten years previously. Seven years later we find him speaking upon the same subject at Kaikohe. That was last Saturday. On this occasion Sir Joseph Inferemially blamed the Government for its alleged neglect to deal promptly with the further increase in the cost of living which has occurred since the war began. But on this occasion he was speaking as Leader of the Opposition, and evidently considered it was no part of his business to again repeat the fact that there had also been a very considerable rise in the increased cost of living, not merely In England, but all over the world. We none ot us like to pay fivepence for the loaf of bread for which we were charged 3^d or 4d eight or nine months ago ; and butter at is 5d and is fid a pound seems uncommonly dear. Yet, in the neighbouring States of Australia, where we have it on the authority of the Commonwealth Statistician (as per cable in Tuesday’s daily papers), that the cost of living has increased by 13.2 per cent, since the declaration of hostilities (that being the mean average increase for the capital cities of the Commonwealth), bread is mostly selling at from 4^d to 3d the two pound loaf in Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Brisbane and Perth, and butter is up to is xod and 2s per pound ; so that there is nothing very desperate In the plight of New Zealand after all. If we only knew the truth of the matter we should reckon ourselves remarkably fortunate ; for, in spite of high prices, and (as some will have it) “hard times,” we really stand on toast as compared with our neighbours.