The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1912. THE COST OF LIVING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3, 1 May 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1912. THE COST OF LIVING.

According to the Nation everybody is aware that whatever be the deeper causes of industrial commotion in Europe and America, the chief immediate Irritant lias been the great rise in die cost of jiving. There can be little ioubt but what this applies, equally ;b Australia and Now Zealand, and trough this great increase in the •ost of living all classes suffer. The Nation points out that in England there had been a considerable and fairy constant fall in the general prices >[' food and other commodities from she early seventies to the middle of •lie nineties. Since that time a mark"l and persisten change has taken alace. The prices of fond has made i great advance, rising most rapidly within the last few years, the price if materials of various kinds has undergone an even greater upward movement, affecting many sorts of manufactured goods, and for large sections of the workers the rise of prices has een accompanied by a considerable ise of rents. But though labour is Till commonly regarded as a commodty whose price is subject to the same aivs of change as that of other marketable goods, no rise of wages equivalent to the recent rise of prices has r.aken place. Hence a bitter feeling if frustration in the labour movement. The question is asked why have prices •f commodities taken tin's new aval •apid course, and why has the price )f labour failed to keep pace? These (uestions are arousing even more attention in certain foreign countries. For the rise of prices is by no means peculiar to Great Britain. It is reflected in all the chief industrial nations of the world. In Germany and the United States prices have risen even more rapidly than in Britain, and France, Belgium and Italy exhibit an increase at least as largo as hers. it is therefore evident thai the largest immediate source of industrial unrest is an international one. If this world-wide phenomenon is to be understood, still more if effective remedies are to be applied, this international character must receive proper recognition. This being so proposal of the United States for tinformation of an international commission to gather facts bearing upon changes of wages, cost of living, and prices in various countries, to er.tnlish international comparisons, to inquire into the causes of these monetary changes and their bearing upon various grades of income, and to make recommendations for common governmental action, should it be deemed desirable, will be widely welcomed. The Nation concludes by reminding \m that President Talc, in a recent message, has given a strong endorsement to this proposal, which has received the support of a remarkably representative body of economists and officials in the chief industrial cn;;n.ries. The initiation of the movement has been due to the energy ol 'rofessor Irving Fisher, an eminoni American economist