COST OF LIVING.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16357, 31 October 1918, Page 8

COST OF LIVING.

INTERESTING COMPARISONS. (special to "the press.") . WELLINGTON, October 30. "The increase in prices from which we are suffering are world-wide,'" stated that the Hon. G. W. Russell, in replying to the criticism of the Labour members in the House of Representatives this evening. "I have here official figures, which reached me yesterday, showing the increase in the cost of living since tho outbreak of war in various parts of the world. They are as follows:— Per oent. Australia, to July, 1918.. .. 31 New Zealand, to July, 1918 ... 39 America, to April, 1918 .. >.50 Japan, to July, 1917 .. .. 66 Canada, to July, 1918 .. ~ 75 Netherlands, to July, 1917 ... 81 Italy, to September, 1917 ' ... 88 France, to January, 1918 ..91 Switzerland, to March, 1918 ..96 United Kingdom, to July, 1918 .. 110 Germany, to October, 1916 .. 109 \ Sweden, to April, 1918 .. .. 147 Austria, to August, -1917 .. 173 Norway, to March, 1918 .. 195 "Therefore, I ask members to bear in mind that, considering the upheaval in trade and economic conditions, we cannot expect to escape one of tho certain and inevitable cffects of the war by holding down prices to tho normal level at which they were situated before the war." How could, Mr Russell added, it bo expected that prices here would be kept down when all the other markets of the world had risen.