WORLD TRICES.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1410, 26 June 1923, Page 3

WORLD TRICES.

HOW LIVING COSTS VARY. A general view of the course of cost of living index numbers shows that the tendency towards a stabilisation of prices which has been noted for several months past is continuing, with the sole 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 Avholesale 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, hut 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 t.o have become stabilised at a level between 54 per cent and 64 per cent above pre war prices—e.g., in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands. In some countries whose currency has remained good the level is higher—e.g., in Switzerland and Japan, where it is respectively 70 per cent and 90 per cent above the pre-war level.