INSTANCES OF PRICE JUGGLERY.

Taihape Daily Times, 5 October 1918, Page 4

INSTANCES OF PRICE JUGGLERY.

No better instance of profiteering can be had than is provided by the settlement of the late demand of coalminers for an increase of wages that would go some way towards mitigating the hardships suffered by the huge increase in the cost of living. After forcing the miners out of work for several weeks while they foisted veritable dirt upon the public at the price of good coal, mine-owners were virtually compelled by the Government influence to meet the miners in conference. Shortly, this conference resulted in owners agreeing to pay the men an increase of ten per cent, on their wages, and now it is announced, despite the assurance of the Government some time ago that the public should not be further fleeced by increased cost of coal, that two shillings

per ton additional has been put upon coal at the mines, which for all purposes of discussion may be fairly re- J garded as an increase of 'ten per cent.' To the ordinary casual observer it would appear that mine-owners have been compelled to give their workmen a ten per cent, increase and they have put ten per cent, oh the price of coal to just recoup themselves the extra outlay. But when it is understood that the men"produce not less than five ton of coal per man, it will be realised that while the man gets one ten per cent he .earns the owner five ten per cents, on *his labour, which means that it has cost the owner an additional ten per cent, for labour and he is taking from the consumer fifty per cent, to recoup him for the ten per cent. It is this sort of legalised manipulation that is giving New Zealand a Parliament of Social Democrats; there seems no other road to uniform justice. Has the Railway Department been any more considerate of the people fn their extreme adversity than coal-mine owners? As coal goes up so does, apparently, the cost of railage, for within eighteen months the Department has put on two additional ten per cents, making an increase of twenty "per cent on the cost of railage. The whole increased cost of living question is a hideous disgrace to thfs'country. It is disgusting to hear people urging the right to profiteer and thieve by saying that New Zealand increases are nothing to what they are in Germany, Britain, and other such-like places. Is it not a fact that circumstances all point to the suggestion that the cost of living question should operate in just the inverse direction in New Zealand to what it does in Germany, Britain and elsewhere, for while those places are blockaded to keep the necessaries of life out of them. New Zealand is suffering a shortage of shipping which compels the keeping of huge stores of such necessaries within its coastline. While there is a scarcity of food in Britain we have a surfeit of it here and yet men • try to pacify people by telling.them they are living cheaper than people in "England, while they go' 'on increasing, the prices of food that is rotting in our midst. This is all on a par with the coal-owner who pays the workman ten per cent additional on his work and at once turns round and levies at least fifty-per cent, from the consumers