COST OF LIVING.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1921, Page 4

COST OF LIVING.

A DECREASE ESTIMATED. ARBITRATION COURT FIGURES. By Tsletraph.—Press AssoclatlonChristchureh, Last Night. The decrease in the cost of living for the current eix monthly statistical period is estimated by the Arbitration Court at from 7/- to 9/- a week for the typical wage-earner with a wife and two children. This estimate was announced to-day by Mr. Justice Frazer in the course of the freezing workers* dispute while Mr. J. McCombs, M.P., was giving evidence for the workers upon the cost of living. His Honor said the Court was not issuing any definite pronouncement at present regarding the stabilisation of wages, but it hoped to do so in January after it had asked a number of further questions about the prices of certain commodities. The inquiry was difficult, because the prices of many lines varied greatly in the different towns and at different times, but the estimate was that the drop was between 7/- and 9/a week over the period. The Court had taken rent only at the Government Statistician’s figures. His Honor added that the Statistician, of course, was not responsible for the clothing figures. He had merely supplied the Court with data upon which it had based its own calculations. If the Court had under-estimated the drop in clothing six months ago the aggregate drop might now be the full 10/-, in ; which case the Court’s stabilisation basis would prove fairly correct. The drop would certainly be at least 7/-. The exact arithmetical average of the drop shown in the figures supplied by clothing and drapery firms was 30 per cent. If this were taken for the purposes of calculation the aggregate, drop would be 9/- a week. However, he still thought the clothing average estimated for the six months aggregate was rather high. The Court, in placing it at 3/-,. had assumed thei’e had been no variation in prices preceding the six months, whereas there had been many bargain sales. The recent drop in butter had helped to bring matters out in accordance with the Court’s expectations. If butter had not fallen the stabilisation estimate, he thought, would, not have proved correct. “I think, on the whole,” he concluded, “things have worked out very fairly.” In the earlier discussion His Honor pointed out that clothing was the most difficult factor with which the Court had to deal in making its estimates. The returns sent in by firms were indefinite and amusingly complicated. The question of sale prices entered largely into the inquiry, and the Court did not know much about them.