Increased Prices

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31782, 12 September 1968, Page 14

Increased Prices

Sir, —Having worked in local produce markets from 1951 until 1966, I am concerned that the Minister of Industries and Commerce and his department officers are not protecting consumers against ever-increasing prices for fruit and vegetables. Over the last two years the Minister Jias allowed big increases in fruit prices. The only way consumers can defeat higher prices is to refrain from purchasing produce which is handled by produce merchants, fruit distributors and the Apple and Pear Board. Mr Marshall will not always be Minister of Industries- and Commerce. The Tamaki Stabilised Prices Association has written to the Prime Minister urging that the Minister of Industries and Commerce lose his portfolio. —Yours, etc., FLEMING ROSS MILLER. September 11, 1968. Sir,—Wage orders only cover price increases already made; yet the recent wage order is being blamed lor the present vicious price increases. The wage-earner and the social security beneficiary are again having their purchasing power slashed, and yet the discredited National Government refused to extend its price freeze which it imposed to woo the Hutt electors who rejected the empty promises of National and the Social Credit League, and again elected a member of the vigorous future Labour Government.—Yours, etc., \ DISILLUSIONED NATIONALIST. September 9, 1968.