TEA IS RISING

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 66, 18 March 1915, Page 9

TEA IS RISING

BECAUSE SUSSIANS TABOO ALCOHOL I EXPLOITATION OF PUBLIC. who i* to Blame ? Almost every article that goes to Bake lhe weekly banknote look sick is Bow raised in price, according to the complaint of scores of housewives. The war is bbmed in practically every in- ! stance. If you ask the man at" the ! * bench why your boots cost more to c mend it"s the war. If you're a smoker : end your matches cost you .more—well, * the inevitable explanation comes. As c you ask the butcher's boy why the Jill for the Sunday joint looks unblus&ingly l overcharged, he fires the answer before ' you ran rinish the question. And. if at ; ' home yon venture to mildly inquire why j ' the pastry this week is execrable, you ' get a heated retort that bakine powder and other indispensable ingredients have ' pot up to famine prices, and are cut- * tingly reminded that the housekeeping 1 allowance has not increased. >Co wonder , * tic folk who run domestic establish- I ' mentj are thinking they are being! ! fleeced. j ' Public indignation on the general rise ! f in prices found expression at a meeting i t of the Christchurch City Council, on t Tuesday, when thos-e who -were responsible for the increases in this happy ; j country, far removed from the scene of • j hostilities, were roundly accused of be- i ing traitors, and amongst other exceed-j ( injrlv frank expressions of opinion was j that c; Councillor Burgoyne, that it \ 1 he had his own way he would have al'jj the gentry responsible for raising j s prices arrested and shot. j 1 A RISE A.YD AX EXPLAXATTOX. j ] Assuredly there would appear to bo j just cause for waxing sceptical at < some of the reasons that are adduced J as provocation for pushing up tbe price. 1 for their very picturesqueness in some i ras«v; i= enousrh to cause angry suspicion 1 that the price-jumper is adding insult to j injury by pullinjr the le- of the pur-! chaser. ' For instance. Auckland grocers I are busy this week dabbing new * labels over the prices marked on well '< known brands of tea. What was i hitherto 1 S per pound shall henceforth be 1 10. But don't blame the grocer. ' he is merely putting the finishing touch , on the "pass it on" process. You've > got to go to Ceylon, or even further to j Tiujeia for the root cause. At the out- I break of the war the tea markets were I closed, and business was thereafter ' done by private treaty. Recently, so ', the explanation goes." the tea market j •was opened, and so overwhelming was the pent-up demand from those record ': tea-sippers. the Russians, that there, was precious little left for their rivals,' i the Xew Zealanders. and. according to the natural operation of the good old law of supply and demand, up went the ] price. Moreover, the fact that the lm- | peria! Russian edict prohibiting the use, of alcohol had enormously increased the I demand for the "cup that cheers, but not inebriates." is said to have pretty -well cleared the market. Thus on this •week's bills Aucklanders can look for a tea rise of twopence. Armed with authority to make endeavour to discover the real culprits, and to ascertain whether there » any truth in the allegation that there stili remains an article in the zrocerjs shop that has not risen, a "Star" representative this morning interviewed a leading Auckland grocer t<> make sundry inquiries. NOT BOBBERY. The grocer willingly volunteered to pherw cause "he should not be shot.' . He emphatically declared that he did not knoTv a single instance in which an article had been raised in price by the retail grorer before it Had been increased to the trad? by the wholesaler. "The public peem to have got the impression that vre are endeavouring to rob them, but if they knew the whole of the truth about the rises the retailer has had to make they would recognise he is patriotic enough. We have striven as hard as we can to keep tbe prices down, and in many instances we have borne the loes of the increased wholesale price ourselves without passing it on to onr customers, while on other lines we are making a direct loss, seeing that the profit is only 10 per cent, and it costs us 15 per cent to run the business. In addition to that, the retail grocers have made a very handsome donation to the local relief fund." Prices had gone up—even the prices of home products—but in the main they could be traced to the increase in the cost of eugar and the price of wheat. Those two increases vrere the root of most of the rises. Spread over the whole of the commodities of the grocer's shop the rises that had already taken place would probably amount to not more than 10 per cent, and of that amount one-half would be due to the increase of the two commodities mentioned. Of course, rises were inevitable. Freights had increased enormously, and then there were enhanced insurance rates to take into account. On top of that, the Home houses had raised prices on account of enhanced prices in the Old Country. The foregoing suffices to show that the grocer's answer to the question as to ■whether there existed any article whose price had not been raised was an emphatic affirmative, and he proceeded to illustrate the liberality with which the retailers had treated the public by quoting examples of the grocer bearing the burden himself. Locally-made jams and marmalade, which had advanced owing to the price of sugar, had not been put up to the public. SHORT PROFITS OX SUGAR, Even in the caee of sugar the retailer was not getting the same amount of profit as under pre-war conditions, and , the- present gross profit of 10 per cent, really represented a loss. Teas bad been advancing steadily since the outbreak of the war, but these had not been increased until the present. Biscuits had only gone up a half-penny a pound, and that was a small percentage in view of the price of flour. Candles, confectionery, jellies, preserved milks. ! pearl barley, arrowroot, peppers, coffee, sago, tapioca—these and a host of other articles were reeled off as examples of the grocer carrying the burden, and he further pointed out that other articles, such as tinned fish, had inevitably gone up because of the shortage from Europe. "And now I have explained to you why we have had to raise prices." It is for someone else to explain why sugar, wheat and flour have risen to the present price?." concluded the grocer. In view of thp fact that the miller declares he can't help himself, the | sugar manufacturers aver that they can i get more for their raw sugar in London | than for the refined article here, and i that the butcher explains that the de- i maud for meat for the armies had given fcueh a boost to tbe trade that meat i 3 scarce for the Dosiinion consumers and naturally high, this deponent calculated ttat it -wa* beet to give tip the ghost.