CONTROL AND LIVING COSTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22725, 11 May 1937, Page 15

CONTROL AND LIVING COSTS

Sir, —I am a little puzzled by the frequent protestations of the Minister of Industries and Commerce that the present Government is not responsible for the rapidly increasing cost of living, and I wonder whether he will be ablo to get away with it. This blaming of overseas conditions "over which the 'New Zeala.nd Government has no control" will not wash in the face of the facts. The Minister gives a list of retail goods which, have increased in price between March, 1936, and March, 1937, and he mentions onions increasing from ljd to 2£d, or 28.6 per cent. Is it not' a fact that the Now Zealand Government recently instituted an onion "control"? Then he shows that cheese has gone up by 15.2 per cent and butter by 17.6 per cent; is not the Government controlling the internal distribution of butter within New Zealand through a director of internal marketing? Then he mentions bacon, which has risen from Is lid per lb. to Is 3sd per lb., or 14.8 per cent; is there not a bacon control and fixed price by the New Zealand Government? Also bread, which has risen 4.3 per cent, in connection with which I seem to have heard that the Minister has fixed prices for • wheat, flour and bread.- Then I believe that freezing charges on all our meat have gone up because of a "direction" by the Minister of Labour. Also there are rumours that there is some form of control over woolpacks by the Minister of Industries, which has put them up about 6d each, while the price overseas seems to have gone done instead of up. It is not surprising that the cost of living should be rising with all these controls and Government interferences, and further, did not the Minister of Labour recently say that he was responsible for wages in New Zealand' increasing by about 14 millions? As a small trader I know that you cannot pay out more wages and other expenses unless you pass them on to your customers, and some of my customers tell me that they have had no advantages, but only disadvantages from the Government's policy. And how brave the Labour Government was when getting into power. I remember "The Elector" issued by the Labour Party, bringing out a page promising "a brighter budget for the housewife" and saying that "the same quantity and quality of goods will -be purchased for 9s under the Labour plan which would cost 12s under the Coalition," and the article gave a list of retail goods. It said that sugar would fall from 3d per lb. under the Coalition to 2d per lb. under Labour. Novy Mr, Sullivan mentions sugar in his present list, but he says it has gone up from 3}d to 3id, or by 7"} per cent. What has gone wrong with Labour's plan? Is it that, with the best of intentions no doubt, they started something which thqy cannot control, and their lack of business#experience made them promise all kinds oft things which they thought they could do, but which they now find they knew too little about. Eighteen months ago they were blaming the Coalition, now they are blaming the fellow overseas. Axotf.