The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 1912. THE COST OF LIVING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 311, 28 June 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 1912. THE COST OF LIVING.

Having stated the case for the public, as based solely on the evidence given before the Cost of Living Commission, there remains still the case for the retailer and the manufacturer. It is unfortunate that the distributors should have agreed upon a conspiracy of silence where the Commission is concerned, and have declined to give evidence in rebuttal of the significant statements that have been made by the small tradesmen and members of the general public. Nor }s any reason given for this silence, and it is only natural that the public should regard this disinclination as being suggestive of something sinister. We can 1 quite understand that the ordinary business man, whether he is a tradesman, or a fisherman, or a banker, or the person who collects rags, bones and bottles, does not care to disclose the details of his business to his rivals, but there is no reason why he should not give eyidence along general lines, declining to answer any questions that he may regard as bearing too intimately upon his personal business. But the big manufacturers' and retailers have, for the most part, not even condescended to make this explanation of their silence, and they really have themselves to blame if their action is misunderstood. The matter has reached a stage at which it is their obvious duty to take the public generally into their confidence. We know, from personal acquaintance with several of the witnesses, that many of the cases of discrepancy between selling and buying prices are isolated ones, and, speaking quite frankly, a not inconsiderable portion of the evidence given before the Commission has come from the mouths of agitators, who, while honestly believing that they have a grievance, are apt to be a little misguided in their enthusiasm. Wince the retailers will not state their own case, it remains to state it for them. By an accident of circumstance, the bootmakers appear to have been the principal objects of opprobrium, although , '"the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker," the fraternity who jumped out of the decayed tuber, have also come in foi a minor share of tribulation at the hands of the Commission. The one impregnable argument against the allegations that have been made is, to our mind, that we have no millionaires. Jf tradesmen are making from 80 to 100 per cent, profit on their turnover, what are they doing with the money? The reasonable assumption is lliat every other shopkeeper mu-,t have some deep and darkly mysterious receptacle, like the old wife's stocking, in which he is quietly secreting the njllions which he is filching from the public. But a rich bootmaker or a really affluent grocer is as rare a bird as a well-to-do journalist. As a matter of fact, with the in- | crease of the cost of living, there has 'come a simultaneous increase in the cost of distribution. Also people seem disposed to overlook the fact that if the

worker has to pay more for Ilia early I morning sausage, the bootmaker and the J draper and the man who sells matches in Pukekura Park have also to pay more for their sausages, and must conduct their business upon lines which will provide them with the necessary wherewithal. They must, in fact, cut their coats according to their cloth. Also, it is not fair to assume that the difference between the price which the retailer pays to the manufacturer and the price at which he sells to the public represents his personal profit. II« may buy an article for ten shillings and sell it at a pound, but the additional ten shillings is not his. He has to pay rent and rates, and insurance, and workmen, and cost of distribution, and by the time the landlord has taken Is 2dji and the City Council lid, and the insurance company 9d, and the Bank decimal some old thing, and his counter assistant Is 4%d, and the carter - 3y s d, and the State 3s l 1 and his' family 4d, he has very little left for himself. If the public were prepared to pay cash and carry their own parcels home, the cost of living would be materially reduced. But because Lord Whatshisname wants his twopennorth of tea delivered by an up-to-date motor-car, Bill Smith is not satisfied unless his box of matches, is delivered by the same medium. There is no doubt that undue profits are made upon some lines, but these are counterbalanced by the closeness of cutting on others. There is no doubt also that rings do exist in some cases for the exploitation of the public—some of the newspapers are among the worst offenders—tut the public lias •the remedy for this in its own hands. In the meantime it is up to the retailers to state their case with some degree of legitimate detail, so that the public may properly gather that they are not all the set of cormorants they have been represented. - It may be dignified to retain a , dis«reet silence, but it is certainly not business.