ARE WE BECOMING WEAKLINGS?

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 599, 30 August 1909, Page 5

ARE WE BECOMING WEAKLINGS?

: ■■ .Speaking .- as 6ne :of ■ the. pioneer -'members • of the Canterbury Chamber of . Commerce at the fiftieth. meeting of -that'institution, Mr ' H. HargrcaVes said {hat, among other things that during I 'late years," .and especially .to-day, was- the complaint , against the high cost of liv'ing.' It would . jsurprise': many-who . wore'.not in' New Zeai land I 'in the,early days ito learn that certain ■ -necessaries.-of -life. from forty to forty-six - . years ago cost-very much more than they did to-day. Take flour, for example :: the phce N 'at present-was about £10 per 'ton. In 1863, before the electric telegraph enabled them to ' -i.j keep in daily touch with -the outside mar- ' hetp. -he and his brothor, who were' in part-nership'.-as-. general: merchants in' Lyttelton, L . charged £24-per ton, wholesale to: the baker. . /They- paid; their :head. storeman- £2 10s. per i week, -which wqs the accepted ; wage," and bands,reoeived a shilling s hour, and ■there was .no 'complaint -from any of them. Those men. invariably , had their : small: free- • holds,on-frhich, they cultivated' and' grew ; vegetables without- interfering .'.with' their or- I dmaryi avocations.; .. He mentioned that to I . show, .them the difference between $he 'endeavours on -the part, of the early colonists to . cconomiso.and live• within .their' means, .--and the .presentrday system of living.' 1 ' - He was not complainin/? that the working ..' man and the artisan were'living under better conditions than prevailed fifty years ago but he contended that the chief articles of . .consumption were infinitely cheaper now than j than. <Ho did .not remember in the old days -•i:: Belling: decent . tea' at lessthan '2s 1 '6d per lb wholesale. To-day, tea of equal quality , ; . could be bought at less~than half tbo-pHoe , . , Sugar, , , which they'- sold wholesale at from ,£52 to £53.per ton nowadays, cost from 2jd to 2Jd.. por - ,Ib. in the days -of wWch he -. spoke. ■ Foreign loaf . sugar sold' at 7Jd. per* ■ lb. wholesale.then, now. it sold 'at >3}d.' ner lb. retell. He ' did 1 not see any justification for' the , outcry agmhst the.Plourmillers 1 , Association' )as long as flour. was . quoted at from '£9 to £10 10s It was to be feared that; in many in--i. stances, much of the void-time spirit'of self- . •- ieli,ince hid .been extinguished' They needed three things, nowadays First, ' economy; secondly,-, economy;- and thirdly, i economy. -i »