FOOD PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 56, 8 March 1922, Page 8

FOOD PRICES

DECLINE IN ENGLAND,

Lower food prices were heralded by Mr. Felix J. Blakemore, president of the English National Chamber of Trade, in his New Zealand message. He referred to the falls in the prices of Danish, Irish and colonial butters, and predicted that they would be back to pre-war levels. American bacon he expected to see at. Is, and a fall in the price of wheat-yearly in the New Year—he took to mean -a reduction in the price of bread. He mentioned the acceptance of tenders by institutions in England for. bread at 6d to 6id the four-pound loaf. Sugar was cheaper, and with it reductions had been made in goods of which it was an important constituent. Margarine was down to pre-war prices. "These reduced costs of commodities will reduce the index figure from 99.per cent., as it stands at the present moment, to 90 per cent, or. under," contined Mr. Blakemore.

"This will, in turn, reduce wages without .reducing the. standard of living of the worker. Beduced wages mean cheaper coal; cheaper coal means leduced costs of production; reduced costs of production mean increased export, and that means the elimination of the present industrial depression a,nd the solution of the great problem, of unemployment. "To the people of England I send this as a message of good will that tho New Year will be the advent of the 1 restoration of this country to a prosperity it. has not probably hitherto experienced."