RISING PRICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24672, 30 July 1941, Page 4

RISING PRICES

SHORTAGE OF ESSENTIAL GOODS GOVERNMENT CRITICISED (0.C.) WELLINGTON, July 29. "Prices are increasing in New Zealand, and we are in a bad way for want of essential goods, the shortage having been' caused by the import restrictions," said Mr C. A. Wilkinson (Ind., Egmont) during the Budget debate in the House to-night. "The Price Tribunal has kept costs within reasonable limits, but for every £1 that has been saved, £lO has been lost, because when we wanted goods they were not available." Mr Wilkinson said be hoped the Minister of Finance, Mr Nash, would pay attention to the representations of responsible persons who approached him with regard to shortages of certain goods, and said that the people of the Dominion would be grateful if the Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr D. G. Sullivan, would endeavour to have more price-fixing orders issued so that they would know what they had to pay for their goods, and so that shopkeepers would know how much to charge. That was better than bringing prosecutions for violations. Mr Sullivan: We are working along those lines now. "Inflation is a dangerous weapon when it gets out of hand," Mr Wilkinson said, " and there is no more insidious form of taxation than increasing prices for the workers." Mr Wilkinson said the Budget announcement that £5,000,000 had been paid off the country's debt in Britain had been greatly cheered by the Labour Party, but there were no cheers when it was announced that about five times that amount would be borrowed in the country. The £5,000,000, after all, had been paid off by money received for New Zealand's produce—produce that had come not from a 40hour week, but a seven-day week, and it had been produced by private enterprise.