NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13649, 17 January 1908, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

COST OF LIVING IN GERMANY.

The cost of living was the subject of a debate in. the German Reichstag recently. Herr Scheidemanu, a Socialist deputy, suvs the Times, "drew attention to the siiins of an impending economic crisis which had been multiplying during the last 12 months, and rendered the pressure of higher prices more acute. The stagnation in the building trade aud (lie kink rate of per cent, warranted the gravest, apprehensions on behalf of the lower middle and working classes, who were among .the first to suffer. The average increase in the cost of living during the last 10 yea-re was estimated at per cent. The jynco of

articles of, general consumption had in some instances advanced over 60 per tent., as, for example, in the case of rye, which had gone up 62,7 per cent., while wheat had risen 45 per cent, since 1901 and Hour 34 per cent, since September, 1906. Barley had risen 10 per cent, a net potatoes 12 per cent, since last year. In 1906, mot cover, the Radical deputy, Dr. Wiemer, had stated that during the last 10 years the price of beef had gone up 36 per cent., veal 41.5 per cent.,mutton 50 per cent., and pork 40.6 pet- cent. During the hit! 12 months all these prices, except in the case of pork, the price of which had slightly decreased, had recorded further advances. The butchers and the farmers were throwing the responsibility for these high prices upon each other. In the opinion of the Prussian. Minister • for Agriculture, the middlemen were chiefly to blame. Furthermore, according to independent estimates, the effect of the new taritt during j the first year of its operation had been j extraordinarily to increase the price of a | large variety of articles in common use. i The upward movement of prices caused the j working classes to view the approach of j whiter with : Jann. Herr Scheidemann. j therefore, urged the Government to relieve the pressure by removing the duty on imported «vn and by relaxing the stringent regulations which governed the importation of foreign meat. In his opinion these restrictions, which were imposed ill the interests of the Agrarians, were inconsistent with the freedom with which employers of labour were permitted to depress wages by importing workmen 'roni abroad. The partial failure of this year's harvestrendered the admission of foreign corn doubly desirable if the masses were to be ! saved from starvation and distress during the coming winter. Wages h:rd, indeed, risen as a result of the phenomenal prosperity of industry, but they had not risen in accordance with the increase in the cost of living. Herr von Bethmami-Hollweg, Imperial Secretary of State for the Interior, replied that the Government was fully aware of the pressure of the high price of corn upon the working classes. It was necessary, however, to remember that international factors played an important part in determining prices on the com market. The scarcity of agricultural labourers in Germany, moreover, had damaged the farmers, but the importation of foreign labour, which was absolutely necessary, had not depressed wages. As. a matter of fact, wages had increased to a very considerable degree. He maintained that higher Wages had led to an increased consumption of all commodities, and to a. general improvement in the standard of life."

THE COMING CRISIS. " We are on the eve of a great political struggle," writes Mr. Justin McCarthy, the historian of Our Own Times, in the New York Independent. " The next session of Parliament in England will open before the time usually appointed for such events, and this coming event certainly casts its shadow before in a manner which promises or threatens, according as the observer may chance to regard it, some memorable realities to follow. The Prime Minister, Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, announced in a recent speech the determination of the Government to carry out its programme with the strictest resolve and with full energy during the session. The principal feature of that programme is to be the measure for compelling the House of Lords to submit to the House of Commons on the great legislative proposals already made to the peers and rejected by them, and if the House of Lords should persist in the policy of obstruction the Government will dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country by means of a general election. In the meanwhile the prospects of the coming session are filling all the 4 Tories, Conservatives, and Liberal Unionists of these islands with a fury of wrath against the Liberal statesmen in office. Some of the London Tory journals are already insisting' day after day that the Ministers themselves are losing confidence and heart and are growing into a condition of utter despair. Some of these newspapers have actually insisted that the Cabinet itself is even at this moment becoming divided into two disputant parties, and that at any moment these two parties may break into open antagonism. Even the names of expected seceders have actually been put into print in the columns of certain journals. Now, it is we'll known, and always has been known, that some of the members of the present Cabinet are not quite so radical in their political principles as are the Prime Minister and many other of his colleagues. But then we all know very well that there never was a British Cabinet, Liberal or Conservative, which did not include among its occupants some men who were not nearly so far advanced as others of their colleagues in the political doctrines professed by the party. Be the Cabinet Liberal or Conservative, this fact always remains the same, and in most cases the stronger division of the Ministry is able to carry the other along with it through the struggles which have to be encountered. When the general election comes on, it seems to me quite possible that there may be here and there, in this or that constituency, soihe diminution in the numbers of Ministerial voters. The socialist question will probably do something toward this result, for a large number of socialists are inclined to set themselves against any Ministry, on the ground that 110 Ministry likely to be. constituted just at present would go far enough to satisfy the socialistic demands. Then there are no doubt some Liberals of the old-fashion-ed order who are still not won over to the cause of Home Rule for Ireland, and who, although they probably would not vote for a Conservative candidate, might easily make up their minds to abstain from the ballot-box altogether on this occasion. There is also a small section among professing Liberals who are rather inclined to take conservative views with regard to the admission of foreign goods to British ports."