The Wairarapa Daily MONDAY, MAY 12, 1890. FAIR PRICES.
This rise in the price of meat has called forth an outcry in Wellington, and the absence of a fall in the price of bread is disturbing Napier. It is rarely but that in some oorncr or other of New Zealand people are not demanding lower charges for such leading articles of diet as meat or bread, Are Wellington butchers exorbitant in their charges, and are Napier bakers extortionate? One thing is certain that bakers and butchers in New Zealand do not as a rule mako large proflts, and we more frequently hear of them meeting their creditors than retiring on a competence, The ordinary law of competition is fairly adequate to keep prices to a fair level, for when profits grow great new comers tako the field and bring them down with a run. The public, looking at the wholesale price of stock and the market rate for flour, are apt to think retail prices high, but there are some considerations which they are wont to overlook, They expect thoir meat and bread to be delivered at their doors, but they do not always calculate what they must pay for such a delivery; they in many instances requiro credit for their purchases, and thoy fail, to realise that credit is a costly luxury wliich has to be paid for. Still the working mau with perhaps a few hardly earned shillings in his pocket can buy his breed and meat to advantage for cash, and does not need any outside protoGtion to enable him to get full value for his money, Some two or three years back there was a bread agitation in Ohvistoburcb, and prices were brought down, It is often easy to bring down prices, but we pestipn whether the consumer always get tho fujl benefit of such a reduotjon; weight perhaps skimped and the easy art of adulteration'is foroedupontbebaker, Anolhormetbqd by which prices are lowored is by cutting down the wages of the breadmakers or lengthening (bj>ir hours of work, This was done \n Ohristchurch at the time to whiob we have referred, and we reroomber a Rev gentleman, not unknown in this district, describing how bitter the cheap bread was to his mouth, how it almost choked him when he found that the men who made it had to work torrjWy long hours for a miserable pittance, There js 9 dark, a very dark side, to low prieesas spejlap a bright one, and our own prejudice is deoidedly on the side of a good article at a iair price, Open competition keeps prices at a fair level in this 'cojony and it is .'bad 1 - for the community if it .seeks fp/ more than this, there js'one trait 'in butchers and bakers, which in' our .opinion entitles them to. kindly consideration by jtbojwblic; and that is their conduct to the poor, Many instaiices oopje uudei; pai- owu
observation wheroa head of a family from sickness or misfortune has hud to say to his butcher of baker" don't call any more at .present, I cannot pay you for what I liaVo alveady had"
-Now we believe that it isa'point of honor with butchers and bakers, even though they may bo poor struggling tradesmen, to sternly refuse a request of this kind, and to persist in supplying the hapless and impecunious- customer with a full certainty that such supplies won't be paid for. We do not say that butchers and bakers are larger
roarted than many. others in the iommunity, but they are usually the 3rst to findout the distress which some
unfortunate householders may sedulously conceal from tho outsido world, aud are consequently tho first to relieve it. There was a time in this colony, we remember it well, when there oxisted a good doal of all round comfort and very little surplus wealth in tho community, a time when "live and let live" was • the guiding rule, We had then no poor rate, no property, land, or income tax,- lighter Customs duties, and local' rates ;that were scarcely a tithe of what they now amoiiut ' to,' and ■ a man could live as well on ahundred a year as he now oan on ,» hundred and.
fifty. Then came "the.-. forced march," with Vogel beating the big drum, and others,, including -Sir Qeorgo Grey, playing an equally loud tarantara to the tune of" Still there's room for millions rnore."-(It is not the "unborn millions," but. the borrowed millions". that should haunl
tho Knight of Kawau)—the forcod march which landed us face to face with the problem's" of "progress and poverty," problems which we never should have had to encounter had ,wo boen satisfied to allow tho Colony
to develop its undoubted resources without'- the btimulant of borrow millions—without tho adventitious i aid of a floating population, whioh, like the Egytian locusts, devoured all before it, and then left for" fields fresh and pastures new." Now, we
trust, wo aro :on tho return grade and as far as our burdens will permit slowly adapting ourselves to thi conditions under which the Colon; was once a comfortable home for al
industrious settlers. Contrasting tho
old time of fair prices, honest work, and comparative contentment, with the present feverish era of strikes, boycotting, soheming, and sweating commissions, we can but hope that New Zealand, to be the ideal home of a prosperous people, will retrace the steps it has taken on a wrong path, and once more pursue the salor track which, in former- days, in spite of harassing native difficulties and disturbances, enabled settlers to live and let live.
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Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3508, 12 May 1890, Page 2
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938The Wairarapa Daily MONDAY, MAY 12, 1890. FAIR PRICES. Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3508, 12 May 1890, Page 2
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