CAUSE OF HIGH PRICES.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1920, Page 7

CAUSE OF HIGH PRICES.

PRODUCTION" INADEQUATE. RECORD STRIKE YEAR. London, March 15. Initiating the debate on high prices in the House of Commons to-day, Mr. C. A. McCurcly, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry for Fowl, on behalf of the Minister, emphasised the greatness of the destruction of material and wealth in war-time. He pointed out that the hope that 1019 would he a year of work at full pressure had been disappointed, even in the ease of the United States, which suffered lesa from the war than others of the great industrial countries. He quoted statistics showing a considerable drop in production in the United States immediately after the armistice, and pointed out that the number of trade disputes in the United Kingdom in 1919, involving a stoppage of Work, was greater than in any year since 1913, while tie total of workers rendered idle was a record for over 30 years. The average number of working days lost during the year was over 34,000,000. Mr. McCurdy emphasised that the preponderating cause of high prices was that the world supplies were unequal to the demands. Up to the present there had been no adequate effort on the part of the peoples of the world to make good the material losses of the war or to provide necessities for the future. He declared that the system of profiteering was a. check upon production, the cause of industrial unrest, and a menace to the social and political stability of every country in Europe. The Government's policy in the past year had been as far as possible to abolish economic control and substitute a policy of close investigation of supplies, cost of production, and of profits, followed by an endeavor in consultation with trade interests concerned, to bring pressure to bear without the use of compulsion, and, if possible, to reach a friendly agreement with regard to what was a fair and reasonable profit. Mr. McCurdy emphasised that a year's strenuous work in Europe and throughout the world was necessary to attain prosperity. Sir Eric Geddes, Minister for Transport, in an interview, said that it was always wrong for a British workman to think that if ho produced less hi 3 comrade stood a chance of a job. "The demand for goods to-day is so great," said Sir Eric, "that every hour's work can find a market. Unemployment from over-production is the last danger we havfi to fear."