WORLD PRICES.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15887, 27 July 1923, Page 6

WORLD PRICES.

HOW LIVING COSTS VARY. A general view of the course of cost of living index numbers shoAVS that .the tendency towards a stabilisation of prices which has been noted for several months past is continuing, with the s,ole exception of countries where the instability of the currency is bound to bring fluctuations in prices. According to an article in the International Labour Review, the course of retail prices only follows the course of wholesale prices with some uncertainty. A temporary lowering of wholesale prices in Germany at the beginning of December, for instance, was not followed by a corresponding movement in the index figures of retail prices. Retail prices are tending to rise in Germany, Belgium, . France and Poland. In Austria prices had risen continuously up to September, 1922, but since October there had been an uninterrupted sinking due to the stabilisation of the currency. In other countries a sinking of prices can also be observed. In the case of wholesale prices no change of importance is to be noted. In countries where the relation of the currency to a gold standard has not depreciated, prices appear to have become stabilised at a level between 54 per cent and 64 per cent above pre Avar prices—e.g., in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands. In some countries Avhose currency has remained good the level is higher—e.g., in Switzerland and Japan, Avhere it is respectively 70 per cent and 90 per cent above the pre-Avar level.