COST OF LIVING.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1920, Page 9

COST OF LIVING.

'WHAT SOUTHERN MERCHANTS THINK. FAVORABLE INDICATIONS. Reports that the cost of clothing has dropped considerably on the Honw market have caused great interest in Christchurch, says a Christohurch correspondent. Housewives are asking whether a fall in prices can bp expected locally. Drapers, on the strength of private information, predict that if any decrease takes place it jvill be purely temporary. A representative of a leading retail establishment said that managers of drapery concerns have a very interesting problem to settle. The public demand and seek lower prices. Press cablegrams indicate that lower prices rule in Japan and America, and during the past few days evop in Great Britain itself. At the same time business cables have reached New Zealand within the last seven days indicating still further advances in cotton goods, and within the last fourteen days similar advices have been reoelvea recording woollen goods-

SHORT PERIODS OF UNLOADS.

No one can forecast definitely whether prices will fall to any extent for %t least the next two years. There may be short periods of unloading certain types of stock, which will be confined largely to fashionable attire, principally clothing and millinery. Stable products are very difficult to get, and shipments from the Old Country are coming through very slowly. For instance, a £20,000 order was sent to London quite recently to buy Manchester cotton goods in the open market, paving the ruling prices. Advice was immediately cabled back here that the goods were unprocurable, and so far only £4OOO worth has been obtained under conver of that; order. Under these circumstances it is not reasonable to expect an all round decrease in prices. Every drapery concern would welcome a continual fall in prices until the cost; of merchandise has receded to a reasonable figure. There is nothing surer 4»an that, TOO MUCH GAMBLING.

"Prices will come back here before long. Indications already manifest this," said a local merchant to a Sun representative. "There has undoubtedly been too much gambling in stocks, and the attitude the banks have taken up will soon affect this. During the past few years of prosperity numbers of men started in business, la.rj;c*y as brokers, who had not the necessary training or financial backing. The attitude of the banks at that time allowed those men to gamble, and the cost, of the goods to the consumer was thus added to." He gave an instance of a man who had contracted to buy Japanese goods through Australia. These goods had passed through several hands, una the New Zenland speculator so far has been unable to place them here- Unless ho succeeds and ruling prices are against him—lie will probably go under. That the trade is beginning to reeqgnise that a dangerous position lies alfead is borne out by tlio fact that many firms, his own included, are keeping si-on}.-* u« low as possible. If this tendency is general in other importing countries the resulting slackening of orders will be a big factor in the reducing of prices. Discussing the position in America and Kngland, where prices have been cut down to meet a protest against the continued rise in. the cost of living, this merchant stated that if the rises were legitimate serious cuts couM not be made. If they are being made, then the high level of prices was the result of profiteering. Rates under such conditions cannot keep up. Tlie public could do a great deal by refusing to buy excessively dear goods#

CHEAP GERMAN GOODS. It was staled that, apart from the question of sentiment, Australasia lost a big chance of reducing the co.tfc of living by refusing to trade with (ierjnany immediately after peace was declared. Goods bought then by America and England will shortly make their appearance, but at high prices. Yet they were originally purchased under the most favorable conditions of exchange and at bedrock prices. The exchange rate with Germany ran from 300 to 401) marks to the pound sterling, instead of about 20. On January 28 this exchange rate was ■if>7 marks. This meant fortunes to English and American buyers. America had really "cleaned up" Germany of good?, and had even bought large quantities of freehold. Whole blocks of houses in Berlin had been purchased by American investor.* Now the German exchange rate is Mown to about 150 murks, and the German Government has put on an export tax of 50 to 150 per 'pent, to adjust exchanges. Tn addition, nothing can be exported from Germany now except under license. Even France, joined in the run to trade with Germany. Many "French" perfumes and soaps were bought originally in Germany and re-exported from France.

| AN INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM. ! Much has been said and written about the causes and the effects of the present high eost of living. The problem has now become one of international significance. Various countries have estimated the rise in the price of the necessities of life at from 80 to 150 per cent, above pre-war rates. In Australia and New Zealand tailors are gravely warning their customers to purchase as many suits as they can at the present rate of £l4 each, as they are advised that the price of wearing material is going up to such a figure that suits will bring £25 at the end of the present year. In Wellington at Inst week-end, eggs were selling ;,t 3s 9d per do/.en. English files tn hand indicate that public indignation has been aroused through the price of frozen mutton having soared to Is 4Jd per lb, and the reel of cotton to ]OJd. Tobacco has advanced 4s per lb in New Zealand in as many months. Price-fixing and anti-profiteering legislation has failed to steady the upward rise of prices, despite prosecutions and judgments awarded by the various courts.

In the State of New York during February, there were over a thousand prosecutions in a profiteering "drive,"' and convictions were recorded in half the number of cases. Prices of commodities in America are reported to be soaring at an'appalling rate, but. it must he remembered that, wages, too, have largely increased there, as in other countries. In the town of Detroit, the fifth largest in the United States. the wages of unskilled labor are ([noted at £1 lis per day, and skilled workmen earn not less than £2 1 () * I'"' day. Isolated efforts have been made to keep prices down to a normal levpl An English member of Parliament. Mallaby Dceley, in a speech in the House of Commons, recently denounced Uia man-

ne.r, the people were being robbed, and then proceeded to show tlje Government that good clothes could be bought at reasonable prices. He purchased the machinery that had been used during the war in the Government c otlnng factory to make uniforms, and then bought the elotli direct from the nulls in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and opened a tailor's shop in the Strand. An Atlantic skipper, recently interMewed, stated that there were queues numbering a thousand and more, outside the shop during daylight hours. Ready-to-wear suits were being supplied at from ,f> 17s fid to £4 1,7s Gd. the high-est-priced suit in the shop. The cloth was reported to be good woollen, and tie cut good enough for the needs of the business man in moderate circumstances who hud to pay three and four tunes the price previously. Initial success has attended, the efforts of the Australian Returned Soldiers' Association to turn out suits for exsoldiers at moderate prices. The Association purchased a mill plant, and the first Anzac tweed turned out, stated to be of excellent quality, was retailed at from 3s to (is p;<- yard, and made up into suits by soldier-tailors at a price of not more than .€4 4s a suit. The Diggers' mill has met with such a demand for further material that the Association is now floating a company from the gratuities to soldiers, about to be paid. The first issue is set down at £200,000. Experts prophecy that "lie industry, buttressed by the new ' icreased tariff on imported cloth, will be a huge success Jirom the first.

These isolated instances may form interesting reading, but they are as a mere drop in the ocean of industrial and civic unrest brought about by the growing disparity betwen the size of the income and the cost of living. The problem goes beyond the confines of one State or country.

There are so many attendant circumstances the levelling up of wages in the production of raw materials, and in their manufacture; tariff walls against the commodities of other countries; and the apparent disinclination to get back to woik, and set the world again on an even economic keel. The solution of the problem, remote though it may be at present, may be found in an international study of all the elements affecting the cost of living. The League of Nations, if it is to come up to the anticipations o! its founders, would provide an excellent vehicle of international discussion and study of living problems. The machinery is available. A method that might be employed would be for tlie- delegates to the League to invite their legislatures o frame proposals for the consideration of the League, to eover basic costs in production and manufacture, with due relation to the standard of currency, and other attendant factors. One can 'easily I conceive a State, such as New Zealand embarking on a propaganda of study and public discussion, in the schools, colleges university and legislature, with a view' of disseminating information on the allimportant project of keeping the cost of living within reasonable bounds. An international exchange of opinions, through tnc medium of the League of Nations, would arrivfe nearer to a solu- . n of , Ulc problem than has hitherto I been achieved by the isolated efforts oH UJiln idual nations. j