The Greatest Profiteers

NZ Truth, Issue 913, 26 May 1923, Page 1

The Greatest Profiteers

The " greatest profiteers ..are undoubtedly the middlemen, and not the producers and manufacturers. , Anybody scanning the market reports and the wholesale prices of foodstuffs and commodities, and comparing the prices with those at which his better, half purchases the same foodstuffs and commodities retail at the w^ek-end, can come to no other conclusion than that the prices of .most have m , the interim soared a hundred or two hundred per cent. The high rents charged and. obtained by property . owners of suburban shops is partly responsible, and the craze of the get-rich- quick fraternity, for shopkeeping is inclining speculators In/ property to buy up cottage properties and transform them into small shops. The keepers of these shops, who do only a small trade, inflate the price of their goods, 'm order to make a safe profit commensurate with limited trade. And thus the poor public are pilfered m pocket, ' ■