The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1918 WILL PRICES INCREASE?

Taihape Daily Times, 14 December 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1918 WILL PRICES INCREASE?

(With whieh is incorporated The Xfti* hape Po*t tad Walcjuilno Newa).

When are prices of imported commodities that are of every day use likely to come down in price? This is .the question most frequently and most earnestly askftd at the present time. It is urged that prices went .soaring to unprecedented heights as a .result of the war; they commence:! to .go up directly war was declared, but there are no signs of them coming .down to within reach of the masses .now that war is over. Many people .are chagrined at the voluminous and .readily expressed predictions of traders, financiers and men in high places, that prices arc going to rise still higher after the stoppage of war, and some people have already commenced to think that when that excuse becomes stale prices will still go up in anticipation of another war. The cost of living is a Chinese puzzle to every living person, for not one, hi?Ji or low, in trading, shipping and financial pursuits will risk a straightforward, honest statement of the case. They seem to call t,o their aid everything and every word that helps a "wish is father to the thought" view, which is, come what may prices must continue the upward course and, therefore, there will, and can, be no abatement in the cost of living. Of course, the question can only be discussed in a general way, averaging as nearly as is practicable the cost of commodities at their source. It is claimed by manufacturers and mer-. chants that woollen, cotton and all textile goods have increased in price owing to decreased production. The British Government has controlled snd

limited the supply of raw materials to the manufacturers'; there are less men to work the machinery; British firms have been drawn upon for American i army requirements, single orders having been placed for as many as six million pairs of men's hose, but let it be particularly noted tnat while our National Government has lamentably failed to guard the masses from exploitation the British Government will not permit raw material to be released to manufacturers without a guarantee of a proportionate quanci'y I of the goods made being sold under Government supervision at definitely fixed prices "for the needs of the British working-classes," and each and every manufacturer has to make a certain quantity of these goods which he "dare not export." These fixed-price goods are made at a profit, why is exportation of them prohibited? Does this fact not give the lie to the statement that high prices are justified by the cost of raw material? It is plain that the British Government has some care for the British working-classes, but it leaves the working-classes of the Dominions to their o.wn respective governments, with what results the working-classes are painfully aware. In New "Zealand hundreds of thousands of pounds of the taxpayers' money have been spent, and are being spent in boards and commissions that kept up a lively busines in political laundry work. No sooner do they wash the black off one end of the Government than they have to commence at the other, and so increasngly intense does the discoloration become that new commissions and assisting committees have to be "brought into being to cope with the work. It is impossible to believe that i ftoe British Government compels manufacturers to make goods for the British working-classes at a loss, or at less than a fair profit, then what shall that profit over and above that ; allowed be called? Here is a question that would shame the devil himself, but what earthly advantage would result in plying either our Government or our farcical Board of Trade with it. ' This indicates the unblushing attitude taken up at the production end of imported necessities; at the importing end that state has to be put up with, and it is aggravated by another profiteering screw turned by shipping combines, but there is a want of responsiveness to fluctuation in shipping costs that savours very much of the profiteer. War risks have been eliminated and freights have gone down twenty-five per cent, or more, but it Is not seen reflected in the price of goods, but quite contrary to expectations, and against the natural sequence of things we have it bruited from high commercial and financial places in this Dominion that prices will continue to increase. Our opinion is that if these men prove to be

true prophets it will be by sheer robbery of another kind of profits. If the price question control was beyond suspicion there would naturally be two' dominating features, the shortage of raw materials and-the present unknowable intensity of competition. The conversion of machinery is somewhat a negligible Quantity, as it will be found that the machinery available will immensely preponderate over the supply of raw material. It will be obvious that the raw material shortage must operate towards higher prices of the finished article and when this one- sided view only is taken it would be correct to say prices will increase. 'Against this fallacious aspect is the increasing reduction of shipping charges, and the magnitude, intensity and keenness of competition. America, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, to say nothing of Germany and other manufacturing countries, will all be strong competitors in the race for the world's market stakes, and with Government assistance there will be profitless production practiced to enable some countries to be in the van. It has to bo realised that competition has changed sides; in pre-war days it was the buyer competing for lines of new goods; the demand from dominions with a much higher proportionate purchasing power than there is in Europe was in advance of the supply New Zealand demanded the newest, best class of goods, and its buyers at Home would offer five per cent on output price to secure the goods, bur. that is already something in the past. Buyers no longer will hav ( > to compete; they are already finding manufacturers' agents of almost ail nationalities beseiging them for orders, <"t prospective orders, and there can he but one result; in place of pre-war buyers offering five per cent additional to get the goods, mauufaomrers will be taking off ten n«r cwnt to get the orders. Interested people who live for profits that every moral Ci'de under the sun will regard as pure dishonesty, will try to stave off the day when the legitimate law of supply and demand cannot be perverted to purposes of robbery by corners and trusts. While shortage of raw materials will tend towards increase in the price of imports, competition arising from almost incalculably increased output in every manufacturing country in the world, and a concurrent decrease in freights of both raw materials and finished articles, will overwhelmingly outweigh that increase, and result in an increasing downward tendency. So far as New Zealand's control of prices comes into the question the position is too outrageous to admit of comparative consideration. Tf a trader or manufacturer in this Dominion has a pound of anything which cost a shilling he is permitted to extort from the working-classes ten times its cost and as much more as an elastic conscience suggests. This country's prices will be controlled by conditions in trie Old World and America in everything. We have dealt with the marketing and cost of living question as it Is developing in the countries from which New Zealand draws its supplies and markets its exports, and from information at present available we are forced into believing that prices must soon commence to decline.