"WAR" AT STRATFORD

Taranaki Daily News, 19 June 1937, Page 6

"WAR" AT STRATFORD

grocers cutting prices STRIFE FOR SUGAR SUPREMACY. OFFENSIVE AND COUNTER-ATTACK POTATOES AND FLOUR INVOLVED. War broke out at Stratford this week. It is an economic war in which the weapons are paint brushes, plateglass windows and the advertising columns of the daily Press instead of high explosives and aircraft. The grocers of Stratford are the combatants and the objective of each is to undersell the others. The ammunition is flour, potatoes, pollard, smoked fish and pork sausages, with 701b; bags of sugar— not sandbags— as tlie last line of defence. There was recently a slight reduction in the price of sugar from the 18s lld generally charged. At the beginning of this week there were desultory skirmishes with Pyrrhic victories to all sides, but it was not until Thursday and yesterday that the real slaughter of prices was begun. On some windows newly-printed prices had scarcely time to dry before a fresh onensive by the opposition had to be met with a counter-attack. Interested observers saw sugar fall from 15s 6d to 14s 6d, then to 13s 6d and finally to 12s 6d a 701b. bag. One Casualty. A four-sided combat at opening time yesterday, . the war became a ,triangular affair during the morning, one casualty occurring at 14s 6d. Later, however, an unofficial truce occurred between the two most vigorous combatants and both sides were strongly entrenched last night, one with a 12s 6d bag of sugar with a £2 order and the other with a 13s bag accompanied by a £1 order. Operations also took place on tlie potato, flour and pollard fronts. Potatoes, selling at 2s 3d for 281b. last week, were 2s on Thursday, a temporary advantage being gained yesterday when one. windew announced Is 8d. Opposition prices were promptly reduced to the same figurs, aiid later a little of the lost ground was retaken by a flank atta,ck at ls 6d. There vere no restrictions in this theatre of war. Pollard, selling freely last week at 15s 6d, is temporarily stabilised at 12s, and flour, previously 18s per 1001b., is at 16s 6d. Minor advantages have been gained with smoked fish and pork sausages, but short of a stroke of brilliant strategy the result of the war seems to depend on the extent of the combatants' resources. Hostilities ceased last night for approximately. 12 hours, ' but there has been no word of an armistice.