THE COST OF LIVING.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9057, 23 January 1908, Page 3

THE COST OF LIVING.

STILL INROREASING. Thfl upward tendency of the cost nf IWhwto Hew Zealand is likely to ?eoei>eanother lilt shortly. This Jf it is milk and butter. Milk has been delivered at the door for 3j£d ner quart in time past; it is now 4d, and may soon be sd. One authority who has his fingers on the pulse of the milk market informed a representative of the Evening Post that the causes of the pending rise are a combination of circumstances, cmef of which is scarcity of feed, coni sequent on dry weather, high price of land in the Mauawatu, Wairarapa, and Taranaki districts, and labour legislation. The cheerfulness with which many customers enter into engagements with their milkmen, and their forgetfulness of his little bill, too is also a factor in the rise. Bucterfat is practically certain to up. In the meantime 'the English breakfast table must be kept replenished with a good article from New Zealand, which may be retailed at Is to Is ad per pound, while the housewife in the country of the origin of may have to paj up to Is 8d per pound. Tnnuiries made as to the influence of the huge shipments of £217,700 worth of butter by the lonic and Paparoal sailing within a few days of each other upon local requirements failed to elicit any satisfactory information. This much is certain, however, “good family” at lid may advance to Is or Is Id. and “choice creamery” skip from Is to Is da. Casting around for some hope m the meat and flour markets, that here there might, perhaps, be some slight reductions to compensate for the advance of milk and butter, the Post representative found that while there was no likelihood of an advance in either bread or meat, still there was no chance of a fall. The recent decision of Gisborne butchers to drop prices per pound for some ioints, and Id per pound for others, for strictly cash, was brought under the notice of a prominent purveyor, who at once said was no chance of anything of the kind being done in Wellington "It is quite impossible,” be added, for Wellington firms to:conduct their business on a strictly cash basis. The people would not, and could not, submit to it. The cost of our booking and delivery is,” he added, ‘ ‘ twopence a pound —all that. The natural inference is, then that if this butcher sold for cash only he could, on his own showing, drop 2d per pound on most, if not all joints.’ Bad debts, he added, were a severe tax on the butchering and other trades, and they had to be provided against. The drop of the 41b loaf from 8d to 7d is not likely to be followed by any further reduction. A miller believed that the minimum had now been reached. “It might,” he said, ‘’go back to Bcl, bnt if the weather for harvesting be good there will he no change. Wet weather means chaep fowl wheat. New South Wales will have a shortage of two million bushels, and Victoria and South Australia will be able to dispose of any surplus they may have to their Eastern neighbour, and there is less wheat grown in New Zealand this harvest than last. The whole thing is a gamble, in a way, depending so much _ upon the weather, therefore it is difficult to say before the end of February or March what the New Zealand yield will be —good or bad—and upon tnat depends the price of onr bread. ’ ’