THE BREAKFAST TABLE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 256, 13 July 1926, Page 11

THE BREAKFAST TABLE

CHEAPER GROCERIES AND MEAT The Government Statistician (Mr. Malcolm Fraser), reporting in the Abstract of Statistics for June upon the retail prices of foodstuffs in the Dominion, states that the retail price index (Dominion weighted average) for the three food groups as at May 15 was 1614 (on the base: average prices for the four chief centres during the years 1909-13 = 1000), an increase of 4 points as compared with the index number for the preceding month and of 50.8 per cent, over that for July, 1914 (viz., 1070). A further fall in the price of potatoes has been the principal factor in causing the fall of 11 points in the giocerics group, while increases in the prices of eggs and milk have caused a rise of 39 points in the dairy products group. Meat prices continue to fall gradually, the latest index being 7 points lower than that for the previous month. Lower prices prevailing this year for sugar account for a fall of 17 points in the groceries group this May as compared with last May. All items of dairy produce have risen, the index number for this group showing an increase of 51 points over that for May last year. Meat prices are 11 points higher than as at the corresponding month last year, the index during 1925 having risen continuously from 1456 in January, 1925, to 1674 'in November, and having fallen steadily since November, 1925, but not as yet to the level at which prices stood in the early months of last year.

Expenditure 011 food constitutes somewhat less than two-fifths of the total expenditure of the average household. It is necessary, therefore, to take into account other groups of household expenditure in estimating price movements. Statistics regarding retail prices of clothing and drapery, footwear, furnishings, household ironmongery, and other miscellaneous items of family expenditure have, therefore, been collected as at Mav 15, and combined with the indexes for food and fuel and light for that month and the rent index for February (the latest available figure) in their proper proportions; the resultant “all groups” price index showing a level of 61.4 per cent, over that for July, 1914. It now’ takes 325. 3}d., on the average, to purchase what 20s. would purchase in the month preceding the outbreak of the Great War.