HIGH LIVING COSTS

Taranaki Daily News, 9 January 1920, Page 7

HIGH LIVING COSTS

FRENCH VIEWPOINT. ARGUMENT FOR UNRESTRICTED DEALINGS.

The fact is certain—living is dear, very dear, almost unbearably dear, in France (wrote the Paris correspondent of the New York Evening Post recently). The fact, a little less or a little more, is common to most countries that have had anything to do with the war. The French have been trying to explain why dear living is a fact. As usual, they incline to put the blame on Government. As they are on the .point of having their general elections for nearly every one in their Government and Parliament who holds his post by election, there is naturally a great deal of criticism of what Government has done or left undone.

The president of the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce, M. Artaud, is known for his independent thinking and frank speaking, and he has been talking freely. He says: "All State intervention—l say all—produces, in the long run, dear prices. Take one example—wheat. It Beems we lack 4,000,000 tons this year. France could certainly produce all we need, and she is not producing the 9,000,000 tons we need. Why? Because Government has successfully fixed maximum prices of which not one correspond with what the farmer would have had in open market. So other kinds of farming were more remunerative, and the peasant cultivates the crop which brings in most money. He has given up a part of his cultivation of wheat because he cannot sell his wheat freely. If he could we should certainly have our 4,000,000 tons that are lacking this year and n>uch more next year. "There js another Government interference with wheat —keeping the fixed maximum price of the wheat corresponding with the miller's rate so as to keep bread cheap. Without such interference bread would be dearer. Who would suffer by it ? Not the farmer, As for the workman, we know he is able to buy more food much dearer than bread and does not deprive himself—l and I, for one, do not blame him.

Next, Government interferes to prevent dear prices getting into railroad transportation. What is the result? Complete disorganisation, so that when there is all but an absolute stoppage of trains the consumer pays automobile service five and ten times dearer than the highest railway rates. If the railroads had been allowed to put up their rates to correspond with circumstances they would now have rolling stock, employees, and good tracks, and they would be carrying freight at rates scarcely half what the consumer is' forced to pay for auto transportation. "Again, we ought not to be deprived of foreign products. Wo ought not, under pretext of protecting our industries, to be deprived of the right of buying cheap such things as we could procure more easily if importation were free. Ido not deny the effect of imports on exchange, but the present situation of the franc proves the complete failure of the restriction on importation, and it has had for a consequence a large suppression of exports.

"I have been reading a protest against the bringing in of German bicycles, which, thanks to the fall of the mark, would cost barely 75 or 80 francs. The French maker, whose machines cost him 200 or 250 francs to make, would be handicapped: But why is the manufacturer more important than the consumer? Don't you believe that the French workman would profit by a cheap bicycle to take him quickly to his work? Then, in the long run, would not this additional use of bicycles, due to their low price on account of the fall of the mark, create needs that would later bring more-business to the manufacturer in France?

"Yet another ruinous result of State interference is the eight-hour law. We have got to produce. To produce we have got to work a great deal, and it was the State's duty to say so, instead of simply countersigning all the'demands of the unions. The time was badly chosen to limit the hours of labor and production. Before the war we worked ten and eleven hours a day. If we had not had this cataclysm we might have come progressively to nine or even eight hours, thanks to the development of machinery that would give greater yield in less time. But the war came. We are told that the eight-hour day will enable the workman, who will feel less fatigue, to give the greater yield. The contrary has been proved to be the case. "Does that mean the workman should be condemned to intense laibor? No, but leave him free to work and to have as big a price for his work as he can get, for example, by piecework. My opinion is that the workman ought to have high wages—for this will set him on the way to becoming an employer himself. Now, if he spends all he earns—and so far the workman is just the contrary of the peasant and shows no disposition to save—why, that will make commerce and industry more active.

"Take tax interferences. There is the luxury tax which has cost the French consumer more than 1,000,000,000 francs and has brought into the Treasury so far 200,000,000 francs. Do you .think that has nothing to do with dear living? And does not the tax on war profits force trade to run up business profits, since that, in the long run, is its only means' of existence? The State has need of money—well, let the State levy taxes that will be collected and not taxes that burden the consumer and yield nothing to the Treasury. "In sum, to get out of our present situation, which can only become worse if present methods keep up, let the State stop interfering."