WHERE LIVING IS DEAR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 17, 12 September 1912, Page 3

WHERE LIVING IS DEAR.

Housewives who find the cost of living in New Zealand excessive should he thankful that they do not live in Rhodesia. The census of last year showed that about 27 per cent of the married men of that country were supporting families resident in other parts of the world, and the reason assigned for this remarkable state of affairs was that the ordinary salaried individual could not afford to maintain a home in Rhodesia. Why this should he the case has never been explained fully. The climate is good and the soil is fertile, while labour is plentiful and cheap, but these factors do not serve to reduce prices. The residents of the local chambers of commerce have ascribed the trouble to a' '“deeprooted and all-pervasive abuse of die credit system, which probably has no parallel in the civilised world.” The members of the Legislative Council say that the difficulty is caused by high railway rates, and the territory’s Treasurer talks of the. avarice of butchers and bakers and the inordinate thirst ’of the community, which had an annual whisky bill of about £23 per head. But the facts are cleat enough. The rent of a house amounts to no less than £l2 a month, and building is extraordinarily expensive, dhe prices of the necessaries of life are simply amazing. Bacon costs Is 9d a Hi, cheese Is 6d a lb, and tea 2s 6d a lb. A small tin of jam is sold foils 3d and a pound of oatmeal for sev--0111101100. Salt cannot bo bought for less than 4d a lb nor coffee for less than 2s 3d a pound. It is small wonder that the Rhodesian housewife gives up the struggle in despair.