INCREASED COST OF LIVING.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 136, 7 June 1912, Page 2

INCREASED COST OF LIVING.

CTo the EdJ?oro Sir, —A New Zealand Professor of Economics lately TemaTked as follows: "It is incorrect to state that it is the rise in the standard of living which is responsible for the increased cost of living." In reply to this statement, I say that during the last five years New Zealand imported ovar £12,000,000 worth of what twenty years ago would have been considered luxuries. These articles have to be paid for by our exports of gum, gold, wool, flax, and foodstuffs, the proportion of the latter to the others being over half. This Dominion has borrowed from foreign sources about £100,000,000, for which we export each year as interest some £4,000,000 worth of produce, of which at least half is represented by comestibles. One can roughly estimate that one-tenth of this loan money came out as specie, three-tenths in the shape of luxuries, and the balance as rail-way plant, machinery and necessaries. In 1909 the Dominion's exports reached £20,000,000, of which sum foodstuffs accounted for over £12,----000,000. How, then, can any man, .professing a knowledge of the- science of economics, say that luxuries have not helped to cause a scarcity in certain foods, resulting in the present higher cost of living?—l am, etc., rLJ.