WAR & COSTS

Grey River Argus, 21 March 1940, Page 10

WAR & COSTS

LITTLE RISE IN N.Z. WELLINGTON, March 19. An announcement that in spite oC increased costs overseas and increased costs of shipping the all groups pric? index for January, the latest montp for which figures ar» avakable, w;i; frnly 1.3 per cent, higher than that for the last pre-war month, August, 1939, was made by the Minister for Defence (the Hon. F. Jones) yi an address to the annual meelng of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce tonight.

“This figure compares very favourably; with the United Kingdom figure, which has lately shown a tendency to rise to alarming levels,” Mr Jones said. “The 1 value of the Price Tribunal is further seen in the tact that whereas prices have risen only 1.3 per cent, in five months, in th-, corresponding five months following I* ? outbreak of war in 1914 prices ruse by almost .9 per cent. A luither r;assuring factor is that while th? early months of the Great. War showed an unbroken rising tendency, th? early months of this war show that prices are responding to control. Prices remained very steady up to October, with a slightly rising tendency.- A sharp rise in November was followed by a drop in December and a further sharp drop in January.

“This gives one to hope that the war psychology of 1914-18 which gave rise to that odious term ,profiteer’ has changed to some degree, and has been replaced by a higher standard of business morality. Some increase ol prices we must have —that appears inevitable —but what we must avoid is that dreadful spiral of rising prices followed by rising wages and resultant rising costs to industry. A lew may gain by this process; but the majority must suffer.” Mr Jones said it was a sad reflect on on human nature that after good men had risked their lives in ships bringing merchandise to our shores some men—and he thought they were in the minority—would use that samemerchandise as a basis for making an unfair profit. A fair rat<> of profit was difficult of definition; but every man knew in his own heart when his profit was excessive. The commercial community could make a definite contribution to the war effort by avoiding the war psychology that prompted people to take advantage of the strong demand existing side by side with war scarcity. The Price Tribunal had done much to prevent prices from rocketing; it had acted as a steadying feature. It could do even better work if it received the co-opera-tion of the businessmen of tr? country.