PRICE OF BLANKETS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3448, 30 March 1920, Page 4

PRICE OF BLANKETS.

The British Coal Commission had barely finished its lengthy inquiry, and! coalminers had got wall to work: when further disputes between owners and miners took place. It is sheer stupidity to expect anythin.g else. Miners and other workers enter into, an agreement }for remuneration and] not infrequentily within a month the whole advantage they received is more than nullified by additional embargoesi on their means of living. There are in this country the most audacious, de-‘ liberate, inhuman offences against common honesty which no decent Gov-} ernment would permit. Commercial} morality is virtually a condition, un-l known amongst present-day wolves of commerce. There is not one citizen of »this Dominion that is deceived; all know they are the victims of the most bare-faced robbery; no one has any misconception about. thie.very§, cheating, -and low cunning that is causing; all industrial unrest and social misgivings, still Profiteering Committees, Boards of Trade, and general Government have neither the common honesty for the will and intention to move iaway the imposture that trading imposters have established. It is true ,that a good quality of blanket, ofl’ered with definite description and specifications, is advertised in Britain, and is being sold at twenty shillings per pair, and, though leading British ‘newspapers contain these advertisetments from leading, highly-accredited British firms, there are trading wolves in this Dominion who do not hesitate to denounce the advertisements as false, and the advertisers as tricksters. It. is said that a New Zealand orgall- - is purchasing a number of those blankets from the wholesalers, and ythat they will be used to prove conclusively that trading in woollens in New Zealand is a system of trading robbery of the most. immoral character. Not only blankets, but other woollen goods are, it is understood, being obtained from Britain, the purpose being to ascertain what. duty Gov}ernment will demand on arrival, as well as to compare with goods that are ‘being retailed here at from two to ‘four hundred per cent higher-prices. Boots are also mentioned as being amongst the“ articles to be imported for purposes of comparison, also a general assortment calculated to demonstrate the danger to soci-all peace that the Board of Trade has been, unider the thuhfb of the present Government during the past four or five years. If Labour forces can demonstrate that good, white ,fleecy blankets, of full size, can now be retailed at. thirty-five shillings a pair in this ""““tl'Y.~ and do actually retail the articles, the back of the woollen extortioner will be broken, for with the British Government at one end. and :1 body Of deterinined workers at the iother; 'fllol‘o can be no criminal interlferenee with the transaction. Such. lan irriportation would doubtless disclose whether high prices are justly 01' 1"l.l“Stly levied; it would also compel those traders who have SO-p(‘l'sist.-may Claimed the right to fix their Prices on the llines of those charged in Bfitain to bring down market "Miles 1191‘? ’fo'what they are in the markets from which tlmy were pm-. ~<sh:lsed. Exasperated housewives can only wait and hope that the promised shipment of goods will arrive quickly.