THE COST OF LIVING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3419, 26 September 1919, Page 26

THE COST OF LIVING.

HUNTING DOWN PROFITEERS. (By Cable.) LONDON, September 21. Profiteer hunting has begun in earnest in Britain. Ten thousand workers made a demonstration in Hyde Park and sent the Government a message to "get rid" of the profiteers or get out. The profiteer tribunals have commenced operations.

The residents in many districts have arranged open-air markets, where goods are selling at half the prices charged in the shops. Although no case was heard in the first week under the Profiteering Act, prices are falling, especially those for clothing, boots, hats, and fruit. Despite the demands for reduction in national expenditure, the official figures show an increase of 2267 employees in the Government departments in August, as compared with July. September 22. Nine hundred local Profiteering Committees have already been formed in various parts .of Britain, including all the large centres. PARIS, Septenfber 16.

The Government is carrying out an anti-profiteering programme. It raided a large drapery store 'nd examined the books and stocks in order to inquire into the exorbitant prices charged for textile fabrics. -

September 17. The Government, is applying its profit'eering measures rigorously. There have been a hundred convictions in the Seine Department alone. The fact of the police visitiEg<jshops and pointing out unnecessarily high prices often results in prices being lowered. Profits, however, are so large that no punishment stops some men taking the risk, though the fines may be up to. 200,000 francs, or imprisonment for five years. The Government- measures could not be more drastic. They include the publication of the names of all offenders, and a record of conviction is posted on the doors of the offender's dwelling, shop, or • factory. Offenders also pay the whole cost of the prosecution, and may be deported from France for a period of from two to 10 years. NEW YORK, September 18. Since the anti-profiteering campaign began there has been a general decline of 15 per cent, in food prices throughout the • United States. CAPETOWN, September 17. In the Union Assembly a motion regarding the cost of living was carried, after a Labour amendment had been negatived. After a mass meeting to protest against the high cost of living a crowd paraded before Parliament House, and General Smuts addressed them. He promised that '"' the Government would do its best to solve legitimate grievances. The Government was in honour bound to prevent the export of foodstuffs required in the Union, but it would be a dog in the manger policy to prevent the surplus going to feed England. CAIRO, September 16. The profiteers have assumed a defiant attitude owing to the reintroducing of the \ control of prices for necessaries. Cereal merchants have cancelled their wheat orders and sent back 20 wheat ships to Upper Egypt, and butchers are refusing to kill. In view of the prospect of a serious food crisis, the authorities have postponed the new tariff for "two days. LONDON, September 22. The Daily Express Tokio correspondent reports an extraordinary murder case. Yamada, an official of the Ecod Department, clubbed to death a rich rice importer. The murderer pleads that on high moral grounds he slew his victim because the . latter's AvickedneEs was such that he was not fit to live. The dead man was a profiteer, and was thus an inciter of the food riots.

Yamada's counsel nleads the unwritten law. It appears that the victim brought £SOOO to Yamada, hoping to obtain a concession by bribery. SYDNEY, September 18. At the Board of Trade inquiry into the cost cf living, representatives of various unions submitted figures in support of their claim that the living wage should be based on a necessary weekly expenditure of £5 ,14s 7d. for a two-child family. MELBOURNE, September 23. The Hon. Mr Lawson has announced that the State Government is preparing an Anti-profiteering Bill.