WINDOWS OF THE WORLD

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 175, 25 July 1936, Page 18

WINDOWS OF THE WORLD

I 4 International Scenes and Affairs.

THE NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS.

ANGRY PARISIANS.

PRICES SOAR UPWARD.

' EFFECT ON FOODSTUFFS. PARIS. ( With the thermometer 90 in the shade, sizzling, heat for Paris—Parisians were astounded to-day when they found themselves faced with a 20 per cent increase in the price of "Vin Ordinaire," the cheap red and white wines with which every Frenchman washes down liis meals.

| Paris wine merchants explained the I increase by the burden of new'labour | legislation, indicating that prices would ] soon rise even higher. Groups of inI censed consumers assembled at wine | shops, gesticulating wildly and causing near riots. I Sugar and Meat Up. I The increase in the price of wine was | only one of many alarming symptoms i of imminent general rise in" the cost of i living, which already is higher in France j than most other European countries. In groceries the price of sugar has gone up 10 to 15 centimes a pound. Meat — always expensive in Paris—lias attained fantastic prices. -(Mutton chops sell for 0/ a pound, steak 4/ a pound, and smoked ham fi/.

Laundries have raised their price? sharply. Gasoline has gone up 10 pel cent. It now costs 7oc for a can containing five litres (a litre is equivalent to 1.0567 liquid quarts). Many small shopkeepers are exploiting the situation to raise prices 011 all kinds of commodities on various pretexts.

The Government has promised to take drastic measures to prpvent profiteering, but so far its action is purely Platonic and the workers are beginning to realise that bigger wages will not buy more food.

The Ministers of Justice, National Economy and Commerce were scheduled to_ meet at Premier Leon Blum's residence to discuss means to combat the high cost of living, but the meeting was called off at the last moment. Even radical economic experts predict a general 40 to 50 per cent increase in prices within the next few months following a complete application of new labour laws. Cafe Proprietors Meet. In many quarters of town cafe and restaurant proprietors .met to discuss the advisability of -a general rise in prices. ' ...

In the opinion of many observers this ineluctable rise in the cost of living is the greatest danger which Blum's' New Deal has.to face and the one rfiost likely to neutralise complicated, legislation designed to raise the buying power of the masses.

In the hopes of slowing down the movement, the Public Prosecutor opened an investigation-on a huge scale for indictment of individual wholesalers and retailers as profiteers.