COST OF LIVING

New Zealand Times, Volume XLI, Issue 9256, 25 January 1916, Page 3

COST OF LIVING

To the Editor “N.Z. Times.” Sir, —Mr Massey- has been ventilating his views or rather the lack of them, in Christchurch. If any further evidence was required of his bankruptcy of ideas upon the subject the Chrisf♦.hnrch interview' supplies it. Hie enure handling of'the question reveals a lepth of • unfathomable ignorance and Ineptitude appaling in a so-called statesman. Ho must think the public, memory short that they have fergotten hiswheat purchases at a loss to the State. His feeble regulation of wheat and flour prices, his final removal of all restrictions upon Individual greed, and hir threat of State bakeries to ruin the small baker. Here is a record of blunder and middling that cannot be equalled by a pot-house politician. Hib comparison between New Zealand and Germany is absurd. German ports are blockaded, the sea routes are _ open te us. By maontaining the .duties upon foodstuffs Mr Massey shuts out imported supplies and enables the local produce? to charge exorbitant prices. His Boar of Trade scheme is a huge juke, it ..has no power to enforce its own decisions There is but one way to reduce the high cost of living, abolish all taxes upon JaW and trade and tax land values instead. I am. etc., VBEITAB.