TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY, 30th APRIL, 1948 PRICE MOVEMENTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 76, Issue 6508, 30 April 1948, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY, 30th APRIL, 1948 PRICE MOVEMENTS

POLITICIANS who place reliance on what they call price-index figures never fail to grasp opportunities for an assurance to the people that a feature of the Government’s success is a steadying hand on rising commodity prices, especially as affecting the working man’s breakfast table. But the average housewife refuses to be convinced with index figures which disclose only a small or nominal percentage of increase. She claims to know from day-to-day experience of the market-place that although higher wages rates apply her actual spending power has been substantially reduced, and she remains suspicious and certainly unconvinced with political assurances based on some index of the price bolometer which she neither understands nor acknowledges. To her it is perfectly meaningless that under systems of high finance, with wage increases on the one hand, and child and family benefits and subsidies on the other hand, her domestic budget is supposed to be balanced. Her judgment is based on what she finds when she enters the market-place for the absolute necessities of food—when she goes to the butcher, the baker, and the grocer in her normal round of satisfying the family requirements. “ There ! ” one of • them said, the other day, as she displayed a grocery docket dated 1935—“ the year of change in New Zealand.” It was a normal day’s provisioning, with ten items, and totalled £1 13s lOd. The same items to-day, if available in ready supply, would cost £3 10s lid, despite the fact that some of the commodities are subsidised. It was an intriguing subject, and inquiry at the grocery counter showed, from a series of 1935 dockets, the following comparisons, many of the items to-day being P.I.T. controlled prices:— 1935 1948

And so it goes on. But in the above listing the total of 1935 prices was £2 4s 4d_. compared with £5 3s 2Jd in 1948—an increase of 132 per cent; and this conflicts entirely with the politicians’ price-index figure of only a nominal increase. There are other and equally vexatious factors in the housewife’s experience —i the withdrawal of deliveries, the market shortages, and the queueing up for supply. She knows from what has happened in the past that an appeal to the Arbitration Court is not the answer, and she feels that many of her worries and problems are deep-seated in many aspects of Government policy

—that she is being dearly' for benefits which are claimed for her advantage; and her reasoning is not far wrong when she asserts that the promised balanced economy is further distant now than ever it was. Fundamentally licensing and controls have gripped the major features of supply and service in New Zealand, and the means of production and distribution have been deliberately narlowed. High taxation tends to destroy initiative and enterprise, and many of the so-called industrial concessions have operated adversely in their final effect on the market-place. Until the sources of production can be again strengthened, and the channels for distribution opened more widely, the price barometer must register against the people’s spending power. Less of controls and more of initiative, less of political theory and more of business service, is what the country needs most. If the Government would release its hold and allow industrious hands to operate more freely, economic balance would be much more quickly restored.

s d s d Butter 11 1 0 Baking powder 1 4 z 4 Teaspoon Tea 3 0 4 10 Salt (51b bag) 10 1 8 Lentils (per lb) 4 1 2 Creamoata 1 6 2 4 Sandsoap Washing powder 3 1 3 9 6J 7 Sultanas Dates 4 1 11 0 Bacon (rashers) 1 0 2 0 Sugar (701b bag) 16 10 42 0 Sunlight soap 10 1 7 Golden Svrup (71b tin) 1 9 3 5 Jam, (6 lbs) 3 6 6 0 Honey (5 lbs) 2 8 7 1 Orange cordial 1 0 2 9 Cornflour (loose) 4 1 Salmon (J’s) 9 1 Starch 10 1 G Peaches (tinned) 1 1 2 4 Soap (large bar)' 10 4 Wianuts (shelled) 1 3 5 0 Coconut (desiccated) 0 2 71 Apricots (dried) 10 2 10