“BY MINISTERIAL DIRECTION”

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 117, 12 February 1944, Page 6

“BY MINISTERIAL DIRECTION”

Comparisons of movements in various countries in such items as wholesale and retail prices, wage levels and the cost of living have only a limited value today because the policies adopted to secure a measure of stabilization differ in important respects. But apparently the people in most British countries are given information regarding the cost-of living that is withheld here. The thing can illustrated by a.report issued at Ottawa recently." It said: "The official cost of living index now shows a zvartime increase of 18.4 per cent., an increase of 1.4 points since the cost of living bonus was adjusted in July, 1942.” Similarly the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, when dealing with the cost of living, based his comparisons on the prewar level, and the various indexes published in Britain are apparently compiled in the usual manner. The people of the other units of the British Commonwealth have at least some idea of how the cost of living has been affected by the war.' They are told the wartime increase. That is not the position here. The only basis made available is that of the wartime price index on the base December 15, 1942, equals 1000. That does not permit of comparisons with the level of prices ruling prior to that date, and an official explanation of the cessation of information previously available is that “the publication of the ordinary retail prices index has been discontinued by ministerial direction, and the customary figure of percentage increase in retail prices since the outbreak of the war will no longer be available.” Commenting on this arbitrary decision, Mr. A. E. C. Hare, Research Fellow ( in Social Relations, Victorja University College, said in his annual report: “The discontinuance of the existing retail prices index, by order of the Minister, at the time the stabilization policy was announced has removed the only means of ascertaining the- trend of retail prices calculated on a basis which is fully available to public inquiry, for there has hitherto been no explanation of the methods used in constructing the new wartime price index. If confidence in the wartime index is to be maintained, it is urgent that full details of the method used in constructing it should be made publicly available.” And it can be added that there is no apparent reason why both the ordinary retail prices index and the wartime index should not be published, and the basis of the latter fully explained. These things certainly come under the heading of “essential information,” and if the particulars are made available in other parts of the Empire, then the war cannot be the reason for their withdrawal here. There used to come from the Government ranks stout assertions about trusting the people, but, in many important respects, there is and long has been a disinclination to inform them on matters touching the welfare of both the State and the individual.