THE COST OF LIVING.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 86, 11 April 1912, Page 6

THE COST OF LIVING.

Complaints about the coat of living continue to come from representatives of workers who have discovered that a raising of wagee^ and a lowering of hours have not brought all the happiness onco fondly anticipated. The Government is again being urged "to take stops to prevent unnecessary rises in prices of foodstuffs." In fact, some optdmiste appear to imagine that the cost of living is like a clock, to be easily regulated by the legislative hand. Govanunente can, of course, do much to restrain greedy trusts, whose operations artificially raise the prices of the neeessariea of life, but Governments cannot aanely decide that certain thinge must be cheap if phe cost of production is comparatively high. The natural laws of economics have to be respected ; reformers have rather to concern them•selve* with unnatural restrictions and unholy alliances. Investigators have to study any alleged Labour Trust a* well mm «££ alleged Capital .Trust when do-

termining tho factors involved in that j vague problem, "tho cost of living." The Ward Administration had promised to make a thorough enquiry, and an obligation ie on tho new Ministry to do something useful in this matter. The Governor's Speech proposed a Standing Commission of Industrial Investigation, representing Labour, and industrial, commercial, and landed interests. The BCQpe would include enquiry into the cost of living, the existence of monopolies, and "other pressing social and industrial problems," such ac unemployment arid insurance against sickness. Undoubtedly euch a commission could do valuable work if the services of competent men were available. A good beginning has already been made by Dr. J. W. M'llwraith v of Christchurch., with his book on "Tho Couree of Prices in New Ze>aland," am enquiry into tlie nature and causes of the variations in the standard of value from the year 1861 to 1910. The author, who is graduate assistant to the Professor of History and Economics at Canterbury College, has taken immense pains to prepare hi 6 figures; he has set up monumental columns of statistics, and his general conclusion is that the wholesale prices on the main articles of daily consumption have fallen fairly steadily. The tables of wholesale prices certainly do not give, on Dr. M'llwraith's showing, any 6olid backing for complaints about tho cost of living. However, the consumer is more concerned with retail prices than with wholesale figures. It is probable that Dr. M'Uwraith, in his subsequent research, may interest himself in the margins between wholesale and retail figures, but hi& present volume gives no information on that important score. It is possible, of coarse, for tho cost of living to go up while wholesale prices go down. Combinations of middlemen may artificially inflate tho cost to the consumer. Indeed, the statistics of New Zealand show a steadily increasing growth of the non-producing class by comparison with the producing class. Though New Zealand is principally an agricultural and pastoral country, the urban population has surpassed the rural total. Here ie a factor making for increased cost of living. By taking thought the Government should see that the proposed commission would have a very heavy task. It would amount .to a comprehensive national stock-taking. Land, labour, tariff, are all involved. The system of education has to be considered. The habits of the people have to be observed, so that the present "standard of comfort"—including amusements — may be compared with the etandaj-de of other times. In brief, such a commission, if it did its work thoroughly, would have to sketch the lines of a national policy covering the primary and secondary industries, which would necessarily bring the land and tariff under review. It is a project to compel the co-operation of all New Zealandere who have a care for their country. Wo believe that the commission scheme is a much larger one than the Governor's late advisers ever imagined when thoy put those big phrases in His Excellency's mouth. The country has a right to hear from competent graduates who have been through the universities largely at the country'e expense. This country harbours come sound economists, but, unfortunately, very few of them are in politics. It will be th© politicians' duty to take advice, for the country's good, from men qualified to give it.