PRICES SOARING

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10290, 27 May 1919, Page 7

PRICES SOARING

NO PROSPECT OF FALL WHAT SYDNEY FIRMS SAY. The good old pre-war times of cheap prices are gone, never to return (says the Sydney "Daily Telegraph”). We may bid them a long farewell. Nothing will over be as cheap as it was.

There exists a vague hope in the heart of the housewife that if she only waits a little while the price of dress materials and the hundreds of other things in which she is keenly interested will fall to approximately the level of her purse. She had better not wait.

Take the case of some of the chief staples used in clothing. _ Wool, judged by the reports of the latest London sales, is steadily increasing in price. An increase of 5 ,or 10 per cent, is shown. Ootton is in just as had a way. The war kept cotton down; for four years there have been short crops in America. The Southern cotton farmers in the United States have made up their collective minds to hold their present crop until ■ they can soil for at least 30 cents a pound, and also to reduce their 1919 ootton acreage by one-third. Ootton, they say, capnot he produced at present market'quotations and allow the farmers the right sort of livelihood. They axe thoroughly organised. It sounds like a threat of another Southern rebellion. : If you do not buy cotton goods now you will not be able to get them at anything like . the present price hereafter. At any rate, that is what the people who grow cotton in America say. .

FLAX FIBRE SHORTAGE. , What about linen? Flax fibre is normally obtained from Ireland, Belgium, Germany, and Russia. The main supply has for many years been raised in Russia hear the German border. Russia can confidently he ruled out as a main source of supply.' The Bolshevik cotton farmer has more absorbing interests. Belgium and Germany are in a similar situation. There remain Ireland and parts of England and Scotland. ' But the Irish supply is quite insufficient a world supply, and every 1 item of pfbducing costs has increased.

There is- little hope of a better supply of any of these;staples in the near future; though Australian wool, it manufactured in Australia, should, one would think, decrease in price. But that time is not yet. "Now that ; peace is signed?” says the housewife hopefully. But peace, as has been seen, will make no immediate difference in .prices. WORLD OVERSTOCKED.

Sydney firms are not hopeful. There is generally admitted to be vast mocks of goods in the warehouses and in the shops bought pre-war or- war prices. The business men 'yore .practically forced to purchase those stocks. And the same over-stocking prevails not only throughout Australia, but all over the world. And not only have they these highly-priced stocks, but more are on order, ordered probably many months ago; and they are compelled to take delivery at war prices. "With all these stocks waiting to be unload ed, extreme care must be taken by both wholesale and retail houses that no financial crisis occurs, which would react upon all sections of the public. This over-stocking is causing vast capital sums to lie idle, with loss of interest and profit charges. CHEAPER THAN IN I/ONUUN.

One large retail house says that, despite the cry about high prices, the public in Sydney to-day can buy goods more cheaply than they are being bought in London. The local, prices for imported cotton and wool goods are lower than the present London quotations. On imported goods Customs duty has to be paid, not on the prices paid for them on purchase, but on the prices ruling at the time they reach here—probably many, months after purchase. 4n article bought at 16s duty has on occasion to be paid on 48s. Naturally the shops blame the Customs for adding its burden to prices. The rise in wages and the increased working expenses due ' io industrial legislation are also blamed. Yet it is a fact that certain firms have made big profits during the war. The reason is explained by one house as being due to better management. Though the gross profit is at a lower rate, than .before, by the turning over of the stock more often during the year there has resulted a greater aggregate profit. Whatever the specific local and general causes, there underlies all these the general rise in the price of living, with which the rite in, wages is intimately connected. That in itself is sufficient to sound the doom of the days of cheap buying and cheap selling.