FOOD PRICES AT HOME.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17199, 20 June 1916, Page 6

FOOD PRICES AT HOME.

The retail prices of foodstuffs in tho Mother Country, according to a cable message, show an advance of k>u per cent compared with the figures for the period immediately preceding tho war. This is probably a Board of Trade calculation, and in order to appreciate its meaning it may bo explained that the items covered aro meat and fish, dairy produce and margarine, flour, bread, tea, sugar, milk and potatoes. Imported goods, of course, show an inevitable increase, because of tho scarcity of shipping and the exceedingly high freights, though, curiously enough, tho importations in many instances are heavier than before tho war. Tho outstanding item is sugar, which on tho April figures showed an increase of 128 per cent on the price ruling in July, IDI4. Fish, as one would expect, is scarce and very dear, for tho Admiralty has commandeered hundreds of trawlers, and thousands of men who before the war earned their living by fishing are now mine-sweeping or serving on the ships of tho .Navy. Bread had advanced 50 per cent and tea 49 per cent, and in other commodities the advance is between 30 and 40 per cent. Meat, however,. shows a great increase, particularly in the cheaper sorts, the plain reason being a growth of the demand by tho poorer classes coupled with an unusual prosperity. Naturally, the scarcity of fish has affected the meat prices. Beef shows an advance of from 50 per cent to 74 per cent, and mutton an advance up to 89 per cent. How far these prices aro due to currency inflation we can scarcely inquire just now, but it is obvious that the expenditure of loan money has had the effect of diminishing the value of money. The most.; powerful influenco that has been at worK, however, is undoubtedly the prosperity that has come to tho mass of the people through the distribution of war money. Appeals for thrift might, just as well not bo uttered. We are told that every district in tho kingdom is placarded with appeals for economy, for tho restriction of the use of meat and sugar, and with warnings that unless the wastefulness everywhere apparent is checked prices will continue to rise. Evidently tnis warning has still gone unheeded, for a very appreciable increase in prices must have occurred between the beginning of April and the beginning of June. Tho figures relating to the importation of foodstuns are extraordinary. Hie imports of grain and flour in March, 1916, were nearly three million, hundred weight greater than in March, 1914. The imports of raw cocoa from British West Africa expanded from threo and a quarter million pounds in March before tho war to over twenty-ono million pounds in March this year. The quantity of sugar imported shows an increase of more than half a million hundredweight a month, and tea from the British has expanded by 4,7U/,OUOIb. Obviously, there has been no real curtailment; of the demand for imported goods. Indeed, both the Board of Trade and the .National War Savings Committee toll the same story, that the working classes are enjoying an unprecedented prosperity and are spending their earnings very freely. Thrift is compulsory among the middle classes, because all people with fixed salaries have been heavily hit by the war, but among tho poorer classes money is more plentiful than it had been for generations, and in a very great measure the increased food prices are the result of their new wealth.