PRICES OF MATCHES

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 August 1920, Page 5

PRICES OF MATCHES

GENERAL INCREASES

THE LOCAL POSITION

The everyday request, “Got a match?” heard wherever men gather, is likely to become very expensive to those obliging persons who comply with the demands made upon them for this small but indispensable article. Following an advance in rates, which has been notified by the manufacturers in Wellington, a rise in the retail price of wax matches has taken place in Christchurch. The manufacturers claim that, apart from the difficulty being experienced in obtaining sufficient supplies of raw materials, the cost of same has greatly risen of late.

The Christchurch retail prices are now as follows :—Plaids (small box), Id per box; flats, 3d ner box; tins, 5d per box, or 4s 6a per dozen. The previous price for plaids was per box, flats 2d per box, and tins 4d per box. Inquiries made in Greymonth to-day by a “Greymouth Evening Stnr” reporter show that the retail prices at present are as follow : —Plaids, Id per box; flats, 2d ner box; and tins, 4d per box. A leading retailer stated that in all probability a rise would shortly take place locally, as nothing’ was hei^g* ;nade at the present prices.

The rise does not apply tnwooden matches, hut the great maioritv of consumers will not find much consolation in this far-t, as the quality of the ivonden matches obtainable is such that they are usually bought only as a. last resource. “The “Star’s” informant stated that he did not sell a dozen boxes of wooden _matches in six months. The English products could not he procured since the war, and the Japanese stocks now held were a very poor substitute indeed. They were, retailed at a half-penny per box. * “I sell a box of wooden matches occasionally,” be concluded. “But I think they are bought by a cunning housewife in order to- break her husband of the had habit of taking away all Imr matches for smoking purposes.”