COST OF LIVING

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 60, 8 September 1945, Page 6

COST OF LIVING

NEW ZEALAND THE LOWEST

New Zealand had the lowest cost of living of any of the English-speaking countries, said the Minister of Finance (Mr. Nash) when he was replying in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon to the debate on the Land and Income Tax (Annual) Bill.

"It is correct to say," said the Minister, "that we have maintained the prices at low levels of the major essentV.ls that go into the ordinary consumptive routine of the horne —bread, butter, milk, and the others. I wonder which is the best economy—to let the price of bread soar to the point at which it hits the family most or to keep the price of bread on an even keel and tax the rest of the people out of their surplus to make the even price? It costs £250,000,000 a year in Britain to do exactly the same thing."

Mr. Nash said the New Zealand cost of living had gone up to a lesser degree since the outbreak of war than in Britain, Australia, Canada, or the United States. He wondered where New Zealand was wrong. He suggested that the expense that had been incurred out of taxation—the job could not be done for nothing—for the purpose of maintaining prices at as near as possible the 1939 level had been money magnificently spent as far as New Zealand's economy was concerned.