London is Aware What Living Costs Mean During War

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1942, Page 2

London is Aware What Living Costs Mean During War

Though potatoes are off or almost off the retail market and many essential goods are rationed, though people are grumbling at the high prices of commodities without a ceiling and some things are unobtainable, New Zealand has not yet really begun to suffer th£ ecohomic pangs of war. At London they know what war can do to the cost of living. Here are some of the prices: Scotch salmon, 25s a lb; tomatoes, 10s a lb; mushrooms, 7s 6d a lb; pears, 2s each; asparagus, 7s 6d a small bundle; lettuces, ls 9d to 2s each. "Of course, there are always some who like to pay high prices for things, but the less well-to-do can but look, shrug their shoulders and go without," writes Mrs. Herbert Bailey to her brother, Mr. L. M. Espagne, Hawera. Once well known as a leading musician in Taranaki, Mrs. Bailey ';has lived at London for 35 years and is thus able to contrast life there to-day and at the beginning of the Great War 28 years ago. "We have had a very severe winter," she writes. "Nowadays the war news is never bright. It matches the weather. In England we are hoping that history does not repeat itself by allowing this war to spin itself out to be a 20th century 'War of the Roses.' "Bickering has become rife of late because of our setbacks. Everyone looks for scapegoats by blaming everybody else. However, all are of one mind that we must stick to it to beat the enemy who has already overthrown two empires and would like to add ours to his scalp-belt."