DEARER DRUGS

FURTHER DETAILS OP INCREASED PRICES BRITISH GOVERNMENT'S EMBARGO. A PROPOSAL THAT IT SHOULD BE REMOVED. Advioes received by local chemists by th-e last English mail show/ in detail the jump in the prices of drugs occasioned by th© outbreak of the war. One trade journal of 13th August states that there have been trade advances of 10, 50, 100, and even a greater percentage. It further explains that some piioe*> are nominal, as stocks do not exist and are not procurable. The following figures of some well-known lines show how great the increases were for such a brief period as from Ist August to 14th August :— Belladona root, 45 uer cent. ; citric acid, 50 per cent. ; bromides, 400 per cent. ; lemon oil, about 95 per cent. ; hydrochloride (product of cocaine), 100 per cent. In America there had, when the last mail left, been a corresponding increase. Belladona had risen 50 per cent. ; taraxacum, §0 per cent. ; digitalis, GO per cent.; ergot (produced principally in Russia.), 70 per tent. ; and drugs such as morphia and morphia salts, 100 per cent. When the war broke out the British Government issued a Proclamation, under section 8 of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1879, forbidding the exportatidh of certain* warlike stores, provisions, and victuals, including glycerin, crude and refined ; lead in all forms, saltpetre, guncotton, carbolic acids, alcohols, belladona and its preparations, and alkaloids, bromine and alkaline bromides, castor oil, chloroform, quinine, digitalis and its preparations, ether, ethyl chloride, codine and its preparations, lysol, mercury and its salts and preparations, morphia, and other alkaloids of opium, opium and its preparations, parrafin, salvarson, and all light chemicals. Although cabled advice of the embargo was received at the time, it was nob until the English mail reached hero at the end of last week that a detailed list was available, and as will be seen by the- goods enumerated, the list is a widely-ranging one. Since the Proclamation was issued the embargo on certain manufactured lines that can be readily produced has been lifted, but no definite advice seems to havo been received locally as to what those lines actually are. It was explained to a Post reports to-day that the great difficulty the drug 'merchants m New Zealand had to contend with at the present time was that they could not gauge with accuracy the amount of goods coming through, the invoices in most cases arriving by mail a few days prior to the actual arrival of the goods. The manager 'of one large firm of drug merchants suggested that the -New Zealand Government should bo requested to endeavour to persuade th© Home authorities to remove the prohibition of the export of certaui drugs to 'British colonies. He pointed out that goods might be sent fiom London to Dublin for instance, while supplies to other , British countries were cut off. If tho embargo were- lifted it would mean, of course, that .prices would be mci eased, but trade would be kept in British hands instead of merchants having to seek supplies in America and other outside counti-ies. The position was that the merchants here were asked to send their orders Home and maintain industry, and yet the action of the Government , in the Old Land restricted the execution of those orders. The question has sometimes been asked as to what lines stocked by chemists, , which it has hitherto been the practice to procui'e largely from Home, can be supplied within the colonies themselves. A local chemist imparted some interesting information on this point. One of the lines prohibited in England from export, ho said, was glycerin, which was a by-product obtained from the manufacture of soap, and which was one of the principal ingredients of nitroglycerine (guncotton). It was, he said, freely produced in New Zealand in its crude form and sent over to Australia for distillation, and the production of the pure article. Therefore, although the price might ris.e slightly there should be no dearth of the requisite. Another ar- * tide that was produced in New Zealand in crude form was carbolic acid — a product obtained at any gasworks — and this, too, was purified in Australia. This drug was valuable, because it was extensively used in the manufacture of some of the most powerful explosives, such as picric acid. Chloroform, added the informant, was a drug which was in short supply at the present time — a ' condition of affairs causing some anxiety. Given a little Government assistance, he added, the anaesthetic in pure form could be produced here. " Already we are finding we have the fighting material and ability in this country," he concluded, " and the war may have the effect of allowing scientific ability to develop if the same assistance and encouragement are given here as in the older lands."