The Daily News. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1917. ITALY'S ECONOMIC EXAMPLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1917. ITALY'S ECONOMIC EXAMPLE.

If other countries had followed the same taihoa policy in connection with tackling the cost of living problem as is the case >vith New Zealand, it would have been impossible to carry on the war up to the present time. The Dominion Government has merely bowed to the inevitable. It is war time, and there must be high prices, no matter what the prime cost of the necessaries of life may be, hence little effort has been made to deal effectively with a problem which vitally affects the people. In dealing with this great national question, Italy set a most worthy example, for although she did not enter the war till May, 1915, she was one of the first of the fighting nations to grapple with the duty of providing an adequate supply of cheap food for her people. The Government sought the aid of the leading municipalities, and endowed these bodies with wide powers, a system of co-operation with the Government being established. Probably the methods adopted would not find favor where, as in the Dominion, vested interests stand for so much; but in Italy it was the interests of the people that were placed first and foremost. We find that the municipality of Milan, as early as August, 1914, warned the people of the impending food scarcity, and the dangers of unscrupulous speculation in foodstuffs, following up this warning immediately by proclaiming the maximum prices of a number of articles of food. To this was added the very practical step of collaborating with the Co-oper-ative Union and opening- co-operative stores, with the result that consumers patronising these stores made a saving of about £11,500 above and beyond that caused by the establishment of maximum prices. In this way, municipal shops soon brought the price of meat and fish down to a reasonable level. This was, of course, a direct competition with private dealers, but experience has proved that the exceptional nature of the world's crisis called for exceptional treatment to prevent exploitation. A writer in the Dunedin Star, in giving a very graphic account of the Government and municipal activities, says: "The Administration began their activities by buying large quantities of flour from private mills. Later on, they established municipal mills and bakeries, which were operated profitably, and turned out a better product than private mills." At present the city runs 160 municipal bakeries. It keeps down the price of potatoes by buying large quantities when the supply is abundant, storing them, and then flooding the market with them when the price tends to rise. To quote only one example: "Several months ago two cartloads of potatoes sold by the city in the central market caused the wholesale price to drop from 21 lire to 14 lire per 100 kilograms." Confronted with a deficiency in the supply of milk, the city began importing milk from Lombardy. It now imports daily 12,080 quarts; pasteurises it in a municipal plant, and delivers it at the doors of the people. Large purchases of eggs enabled the city to sell as many as 80,000 per day in the municipal shops at a price considerably below that charged ii ; tha markets by private dealers. A bulletin of the Italian Labor Office states that the price of foodstuffs in Rome has, in consequence, only risen 18 per cent."

Amongst the earliest measures adopted by the Italian Government was an embargo on the exportation of various commodities, chiefly foodstuffs, the object being to prevent a shortage in the homß market by ejccesßive asportation, with a

view to reaping war profits. This whs followed by the establishment of provincial grain-buying associations to supplant the law of competition by that of co-operation ami distribution, 110 profit being permitted to be made by these associations. it will be seen that for the lime being ordinary business methods were suspended, and the nation bent itself to the task of safeguarding the people's best interests by the only possible (though somewhat drastic) means available. Italy has shown how effectively the problem could be solved, awl has demonstrated the truth of the saying that "Where there's a will, there's a way." Had some such measures been adopted in New Zealand, the people would have needed no war bonuses or other doles, and would to-day have been far better off, through the cost of living having been kept down to reasonable limits, and yet, in theory, New Zealand is far more democratic than Italy.