THE ROBBER IN TEE KITCHEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 September 1943, Page 6

THE ROBBER IN TEE KITCHEN

FACTS AND FIG4JRES 'THAT GET THE GOVERNMENT RATTLED. Nothing in _the election campaign has got the Fraser Government so badly rattled as the PLAIN UNVARNISHED FACTS about the rise in the cost of living. When prices of everydav commodities have been quoted showing the absurdity of claims to have kept living costs under control, Hie Fraser propaganda machine has been put to work at once in an effort. Lo refute the ■ damaging evidence. However, the task is hopeless. The Government has tried all sorts of devices to disguise the rise m costs, whicii began LONG BEFORE THE WAR. In efforts to delude the public, it lias authorised the sale of shortweighi loaves, it has allowed the increase in costs on low-priced articles to be loaded on to more expensive (hough equally necessary lines, and it has ladled out big subsidies, condemned by the Economic Stabilisation Committee as “dangerous,” m order to conceal the real position. Back in 1939. BEFORE THE WAR, prominent Trade Unionists like F. P. Walsh and Peter Butler were getting worried about, the effect of soaring living costs on the worker’s budget. To-day they soft-pedal that issue, but consumers can’t be fooled any longer. Labour’s invisible wage cuts have gone on long enough. JOIE NATIONAL.—3I.