THE POUND BUYS LESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 286, 3 December 1938, Page 8

THE POUND BUYS LESS.

i "I say definitely," declared the Minister of Industries and Commerce in a statement last March, "that the increa.se in the cost of living has been more than offset by the wage and salary increases, and that the people have still a substantial margin. ..." That the margin is now less substantial everybody is in a position to know, and the increases this week in the price of butter and in railway fares and freights have only impressed more deeply the realisation that " one man's price is another man's cost." Tlii) dairy farmer, promised a fair return for his produce, and insistent that the j return should include an allowance for his i own increased costs, was "guaranteed" a | higher price this season, and so the general j community pays more for its butter. The price of butter, in fact, has risen from 1/03 j to 1/fi}, an increase of 4.j per cent, in less j than three years. In the same way the j i railway worker was promised increased | wanes nnd better conditions, and to these 1 is attributable in large degree the necessity ' to raise fares and freights. These anil i other increases, some of which arc not attributable to the Government's policy, in eflect reduce the value of the money unit; the pound buys less. Comparisons of average wages over a period of years are > therefore increasingly misleading. The •\ Minister of Finance, when speaking of j taxation, is fond of saying that it is not the ,1 "I' the tax paid that is. .igniticant, but "what is left after the tax is paid." Tins argument is being steadily weakened '' liy the increase in the eost of living, for ulu.-li, uf course, high rates of taxation are in part responsible.