PRICES IN GREAT BRITAIN

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1930, Page 13

PRICES IN GREAT BRITAIN

FALL IN WHOLESALE LEVEL. WIDENING RETAIL DISCREPANCY. The fall in sterling wholesale prices, which has been proceeding almost without interruption since May 1929, made further substantial progress in June, says the Statist. There was. evidence earlier in the current year that the decline in prices was losing its momentum, but the - hopes based on that evidence have been disappointed. The fall in prices resumed its intensity in May, and in June the movement even gathered strength. The Statist index number in June was 95.8 (average prices in* 1867-77 being represented by 100), which was 3 per cent, lower than the figure for the end of May. The following table shows the changes that have occurred in the various sectional and in the’general index numbers over the past year and since the outbreak of the war:—

The latest figure is 15.3 per cent, lower than that’ for June 30, 1929, and 21.8 per cent, lower than that for June 30, 1928. It is-now necessary to go back to the close of 1914 to find an index number lower than that recorded at the end of last June. The gap between general level of wholesale prices as it was at the outbreak of the war and as it is to-day has been narrowed to* a mere 18 per cent. Yet the cost of living figure is still 55 per cent, higher than that for July, 1914, while the index figure 1 for retail food prices is 41 per cent, above that for July, 1914. The discrepancy between wholesale and retail prices is thus still widening, as it must do in a period of rapidly falling prices. ’ •

June. June. June. 1914 1930. 1929. Vegetable -food .. 75.0 90.3 66.5 Animal food .. ... 139.2 ' 150.1 97.5 Sugar, coffee and tea ... 53.0 72.7 51.S Foodstuffs ... 94.0 108.6 74.8 i n — . ———— Minerals .... • 109.1 125.3 96.7 Textiles ....'. .... 88.3 . 119.7 ■80.6 Sundries .... ... 95.8 108.4 82.5 — Materials .... 97.1 116.4 85.7 — - ■ 1 " »■ Totals .... 95.8 113.1 81.2