THE COST OF LIVING.

Free Lance, Volume XVII, Issue 907, 7 December 1917, Page 6

THE COST OF LIVING.

A Question That Can't Be Sidetracked. "JTUST as the Wellington publie. was preparing to chant a pathetic ballad beginning— Where is the Board of Trade, Is it lost, stolen, or strayed? the gladsome news appears in the daily papers that the Board, after "conducting enquiries in Auckland," will return to Wellington this week. The Board is great on "enquiries," but, unfortunately, it is like the old English farmer, at the rent day dinner, who, after swilling light claret for an hour or two instead of the cheap, fiery ■port to which the old squire had accustomed him on such occasions, remarked "We don't seem to get* any forrader." Can any one tell us a single article of food of popular consumption the price of which has been reduced as the result of the laborious efforts of this precious Board of Trade? * * * How is it that the price of butter is twopence a pound less in Christchurch than it is in Wellington ? How is it that most groceries can be purchased nearly ten_ to fifteen per cent, cheaper in Dunedin and Christchurch than here in the Capital City of the Dominion, where the shipping and landing expenses must be so much lower? And what is this precious Board of Trade going to do about it? Eeally we do not wonder at so many of the younger and less thoughtful working men being led away by the cheap and tawdry economic philosophy retailed at the Alexandra Hall by the local Bolsheviks when they see the utter incapacity of the- Government to deui with the cost of living. » In the course of a speech delivered at the Thames the other day, Sir ■ Joseph Ward referred to what he was pleased to call "the inflexible deter-

mination of eyery class in the community to do its little bit.''. Sir Joseph hardly stated: the position correctly . < There are certain, .'classes' in the whose chief' and flexible determination," as. it seems tous, is to '"do" evety other class in the community, "out of its little' bit."". And this, they are doing as openly and. impudently as if there never was such an institution, reality or merely phantom, as the Board of Trade in' existence. - * ■ ■ * * - *.* We can tell the Prime Minister, plain and straight, that there is craveand widespread discontent with the-so-called Is ational Government over its* apathy and Jaok of sympathy with thegreat mass of the consumers in theway these latter are being bled by certain selfish _ and greedy interests. This dissatisfaction i s playing into the hands of the revolutionary Socialistsand may affect the result of - the forthcoming election for Wellington North much more intimately and : seriously- , tnan the Government'- seems toimagine is likely. The public are not going to be fooled by the cry that theBoard of Trade are "conducting enquiries." , They want to perdeive somedefinite and satisfactory outcome of" these much paragraphed but apparent-: iy, so _ far as concrete result is contfons ' perfectly futile investigar-