Hardware Prices.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2288, 11 March 1912, Page 5

Hardware Prices.

A PERMANENT ADVANCE. STRIKES TELL THEIR TALE. ' Tlic wholesale prices of hardware of almost every description have undergone advances varying from 5 per cent, to 10 per cent, since the year 1912 began, and it is quite possible that further advances will take place before long. The rise is almost certain to be permanent. The price will not drop back, because it has been altered in consequence of what the business man calls a " basis " increase, which means an increase in the cost ot production. " Never in the whole course of my business career" said a large importer to a " Star " representative, " have I known such a succession of increases. They embrace practically every line of hardware goods—iron and steel, copper, brass, and even pottery and chinaware." He exhibited a list of lines in which Home advices, received at various times up to about a month ago, indicated advances varying from 5 to 10 per cent. The list was long and comprehensive. The merchant pointed out that in addition to the increases on cost price in Britain has to be added a further percentage on that increase to cover increased buying commission, insurance, and in many cases freight. " You may take it as a general rule," he said, " that for every £1 incrcas; in Britain the equivalent in New Zealand is £1 25." It seems that we in remote parts of the earth are beginning to pay our share of the cost and concessions connected with the railway strike in Britain. Even where wages in a particular manufacturing industry did nA go up as a result of that upheaval, other expenses of production appear to have done so. Increased railway freight to the port, it seems, is by no means the only additional burden the manufactured article takes with it into the ship's hold. Therefore there seems every justification for the term " basis " increase, and for the belief that prices have gone up to stay—and perhaps to go up further. He is a sanguine importer who does not expect the coal strike to aid yet another " basis " increase. This applies particularly to hardware, the coal and iron industries being so very intimately linked. If the railway strikes resulted in merchants' .bar iron advancing IDs a ton (equal to about (! per cent), it is not unreasonable to suppose that the coal strike will result in a further advance. How soon the New Zealind consumer will find his purse affected depends on circumstances. It may be that some merchants will work off old s(o.-k at the old prices, and so perhaps assure new custom, while others may pass the increase on to their customers as once. It may be asked whether Britain is the only country whence our hardware merchants can import supplies, and patriotic people may perhaps fear that our custom will have to go to some foreign country. Tint it appears that prices everywhere have gone u\\ One Dunedin hardware merchant stated that he buys from America and the Continent (chiefly Germany) as well as from Brilain, and recently fully HO per cent of the firms from whom he buys had notified increases of from 5 to ID per cent., but mostly 10 per cent. Ho explained that owing to our preferential tariff the German manufacturer knows that he must keep 1.5 per cent below his competitor in England to have any chance of business with New Zealand. The German exporter has bCen doing this, but all the time praying for an increase in British prices, so that he might also put up his price and leave himself a margin of profit. Now that the British manufacturer has raised his price the German has clone likewise. There are labor troubles in Germany and America as well as in Britain.