The Star. Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1912. COST OF LIVING.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 4 September 1912, Page 4

The Star. Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1912. COST OF LIVING.

The Cost of Living Commission set up by the recent Mackenzie tuoveriiuieuu on the 24th of May nas completed its report, wnich is now before one country .^ It is necessarily a document of much importance, anu, to jutige by the summaries which have reacneu us, it is written with a clearness and vigor calculated to interest even careless readers, especially if they have sufficient sense 'to know, beforehand, that the subject affects everyone who has to pay for food and clothing, or the carriage of commodities in JNew Zealand. It is true that the cost of living is one of the great questions of the day in every country in the world, and that it is governed by conditions which are not confined to New Zealand. Therefore an enquiry into the subject, to be completely satisfactory, would need to be world wide, and because this is so, it may be said by some that the report cannot be worth the paper it is written on. Those who say this, however, understate or overstate the case, for at least some of the conditions which prevail elsewhere, prevail also in New Zealand, which has also some things that are peculiar to itself. The Commission has, therefore, had a double opportunity—on the one hand to get into touch with conditions which prevail elsewhere, and, on the other, with those which belong specifically to this dominion. So far as we have been able to study the report, tho Commission has collected valuable evidence and at suggestive conclusions in both categories; and, in so far as it has done this the report is a public document of first-rate importance. Our own opinion is that the report is this in a very real sense; that its reality in this respect will gradually leaven opinion throughout the country, and will help to bring about changes of real advantage to the people. This may not happen in connection with abuses due to general causes which operate or gain their momentum chiefly in other parts of the world; but it certainly

should in connection_ with those local conditions which add to the cost of living here in New Zealand. Here the Commission has apparently done some good practical work. Even if some of its findings should be called in question oa the ground of insufficient proof of cause and effect, or by or in the interest of those who are interested in things as they are, the report will still educate and strengthen public opinion in the direction of bringing about a iuster and more wholesome state of things as between the sellers and buyers of the necessaries and conveniences of life. Any combination of any kind to arbitrarily raise the price of any commodity which is bought by the people is guilty of a species of blackmail, and should be compelled by law to forego its practice. This is selfevident as a matter of common justice and public policy—just as much so as it would be to compel anyone who did so, to cease to claim for a sovereign or a shilling more than could be bought with either in the country's open markets. The extortion is just as real and as plain in the one case as it would be in the other. The element of arbitrary compulsion is present in both. In the light of this view, the Commission makes a very important statement when it says that the Merchants' Association of New Zealand has "obtained control and fixed higher prices for at least the following commodities: Sugar, matches, cocoa, Keiller's marmalade, Colman's mustard, Colman's starch, Keen's spice, Keen's blue, Robinson's groats and barley, oatina, gerstina, Neave's food, Mellin's food, almonds, baking powder, sapon, Lever's soaps, ltickett's polishes, local starch, soai), candles, proprietary teas, Highlander milk, tobacco, cigarettes, and certain brands of cigars." These articles do not fill life's whole bill-of-fare, but the list is tolerably formidable; and the charge cannot be disposed of until it is completely disproved in the open Court of Public Opinion. Similar statements are made with regard to the carriage of New Zealand coal by New Zealand steamers. Then, with respect to the local manufacture of matches, it is shown* that the industry is, from various points of view, unsatisfactory, while the protected article costs so much more than its imported equivalent, that the revenue "from imported matches would produce at least £20,000 a year, and the public would have better matches at much lower prices than those ruling at present"; so that the State could thus afford to give the employees pensions equal to their present wages —£11,302 a year. This is another way in which the buyers of a commodity in general use have to pay far more than its market price; and nothing of this kind should be allowed to prevail in a democratic country, for it does so at the expense of the people. Then it seems that reductions in Customs duties, intended to make certain things cheaper to those who buy them,, do not lead to lower retail prices, so that what should be the gain of the people is appropriated by, the importers or retailers or both—a glaringly unjust thing. These are all plain practical points, with nothing abstract or abstruse about them. What do the people think of the light in which they show things? Of course, there are other valuable findings in the report, and to these we may refer from time to time; but the points we have mentioned are, even by themselves, sufficient to justify tho Co"imi«;cir,., aiK ] to entitle its labors to xhp cord in 1 appreciation of the w'l'h-r.