WHOLESALE PRICES.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14894, 17 October 1918, Page 2

WHOLESALE PRICES.

The Board of .Trade in New Zealand may be rendering immense service^ — perhaps!—in regulating the prices of foodstuffs and tho ordinary necessaries of life (remarks the "Wairarapa Age"). But the "Abstract of Statistics" which is published by the Government Statistician —an tint'ortunate production for the Government, by the way —throws an illuminating light upon the extraordinary anomalies that exist in the wholesale businesses of the Dominion. Let us give just a few instances, to show how energetic the Board of Trade must have been in the controlling of prices. No la sugar was sold wholesale in Auckland in the month of August last at £23 per ton. The same quality sugar is sold in Wellington at £25 LOs per ton. But, someone will tell us, the freight to Wellington is greater than it is to Auckland. Let us admit that it is. How comes it,"then,-that sugar sold at Christchurch, is farther distant by sea, and is removed by some miles from the seaboard, at £24 per ton ? Then let us take commonsalt. This was sold at Auckland at £17 per ton, while at Wellington the wholesale price was £15, and at Christchurch £16. Strange, is it not? Here are a. few examples of the extraordinary discrepancies in wholesale prices:— Sago (per cwt.), Auckland^ 3Ss-4£d: Wellington, 29s 2d; Christchurch", 34s 4d.

Olive oil (pints), Auckland, 12s Ad; Wellington, 16s 4d; Christchurcii; 15s: Mustard (tin), Auckland 2s 4d; Wellington 3s l£d, Christchurch 2s S-?d. Soap (N.Z.), Auckland 740s;"*Wellington, 6405; Christchurch, 6535. These are only a few of scores of glaring anomalies that exist. -Fencing wire was sold at Auckland at £60 per ton. at Wellington at £57 10s, and at Christchurch at £54 10s. AVhy should it be £5 10s more ton at Auckland tuan it is at Christchurch ? White lead could be bought at Auckland at £85 16s per toil, "while" at Wellington it cost £101 ]ss. Raw linseed oil was Is 8d per gallon dearer in Wellington than in Christchurch. The same extraordinary differences occur in textiles, leather, crockery, timber chemicals, etc. The variation is such that, 'taking"" everything into account, the merchants in one city probably make as,much profit in the aggregate as they ■do in the other. But it is all so clumsily arranged. Tlie Board of Trade 'must know that the markets are being controlled by provincial rings. If they were not, how could there be such striking differences in the prices of such commodities as sugar, salt and fencing-wire? The whole trading businesß ? as disclosed iby the "Abstract of statistics," presents a very unsavoury appearance. It is time that somebody wqke up and asked a pointed question in the House of Representatives upon tne subject.