The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1907. REGULATED PRICES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12131, 25 July 1907, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1907. REGULATED PRICES.

The proposal of the Hon. J. A. Millar, Minister for Labour, to regulate by Act of Parliament the selling: prices of the r.ece*3.-:aries of life—foodstuffs, food, clothing, and ss on—is described1 by the Melbourne Argus as puerile niid primitive, and we are not at all disposed to quarrel with the description. Mr. Millar wants to set up a Bciard of Control which is to advisa the Government whenever it thinks too much is ibeing riharged for, say. bread or coal or flaait- | nel. Parliament is then to draw up and fix price lists for the bakers, coal merchants, and" drapers. It all sounds so delightfully s:mi>le, but, as th? "Argus" points out, unfortunately for Mr. Millar's scheme, the machinery of trade* and industry is a highly complicated whole ■oi; interdep'^ident parts. No one part can bo disturbed in its course without affecting; other parts. His plan has been tried before, and with idisiastrou>3 results. It lias not even the advantage of novelty, but is simply a return to a { practice which has failed again and again. English history in the Middle Ages, when; a? Hume tells us, commerce was little understood, abounds in examples Avhich witness to the futility of this puerile device. There is the "assize of bi'oad" in the reign of Henry HI., hack as far as thie thirteenth ton- j

tury, wiliicli prescribed the selling price. "Yet," we are informed, "did the prices often rise much higher than any taken notice of by the. statute." After the Black Death epidemic of (the fourteenth century, when the scarcity of labour naturally enhanced its value and the B eost of every article which it produced, desperate efforts were made to keep clown, both Avages and prides by statute; but, in spite of all pains and penalties, neither the King's Council nor the Parliament of the realm could enforce rules contrary to the economic Law of supply and demand. In Tudor times the Lord Chancellor was given (the right to fix tne price oif poultry, cheese, and butter, arid by statute low rates were prescribed .for beef, pork, and' mutton for th? benefit of the poor—legislation which sc defeated itself that the law had to be immediately repealed.' Henry Vll.'s decree limiting the price of bows simply had the effect of putting* ia stop to the making of bows worth having. Franc? furnished two classical illustrations of rtlhe folly of trying to remedy economic mistakes by fixing the prices of commodities. At the Revolution the Government issued; a mass otf p&per money in the form of "assigmate," or notes drawn against: the confiscated church lands. It was believed at first that the lands wouldi soon be sold and the notes reclaimed, but in the disturbed state of society th*> sales "hung fire." The "assignats" went down in value, until 500 francs (say £20) of this paper currency t0,5 required to buy a cup of coffee In vain did the authorities strive tc check the decline by statutory regulation of prices. They found that even ir the Reign of Terror people could not b? coerced into selling at a figure arbitrarily determined by the Government Again; in 1848, the provisional Government in Paris tried, like its predecessor of 1793 to regulate, prices. Its State workshops and' socialistic teaching hat. 1 encouraged workmen to demand exorbitantly high wages. At once the price of everything went up, and no laws or penalties availed to bring them down so long as the Lou is. Blanc socialists har 1 command of the city. Applying the experiences of history to Mr. Millar's proposal, our Melbourne contemporary sayr

— "In New Zealand at present high prices are undoubtedly ruling. The wage>-eiarners have discovered that they aro no better off with, their increased Ttfages.tb.aii they were of old. They ai-e constantly asking the Arbitration Court to grant them further advaaioes to meet the enhanced1 cost of living. The Court has had to point out to them that it i? no use going on in that way. Raising v.ages has led to a rise of prices. If wages are put up again, prices will alsogo up in turn. The workers will hen bo as badly off as ever, while the cost of production will be so high that the industry will shrink from the inability of those classes. whose incomes have remained stationary to buy as much of itr products as formerly. This is the situation which Mr. Millar fondly imagine.*1 he can improve by applying to it th> false theories of the Middle Ages an<? of French' revolutionists. If he puts a pri<»o on bread or meat that dors no+ yield the produdea' a profit, the producer will either export or turn to some new form of production. Any attempt tc lower .r rents by statute : ,f>v regulat^or^wonlid simply ''check the building of bouses, and increase the evil proposed to bo remedied. (Groyernments are rarely capable of doing; anything but restrict trado or hamper production. Tn their' best efforts they are found to be coercing ono man for tho supposed benefit of another/- and unconsciously making1 things bad for both.' They begin by. •attempting to minimise imports. That makes things dearer x except in ths very rare cases where there is over product tion in the enclosed, country. > Next, tc even up, they must give Wages a lift, .as tho Arbitration Court-did for severa 1 years in New Zealand. As wages arc forced up beyond market rates', prkfcr necessarily'rise too. To build a ' house* in New Zealand costs from 30 to 40 per cent, more today than it did before there was an Arbitration Cotiii:. Rents . of course, have'gone up as an uieyit-\ able result.• In.like manner everything into which the element of labour enters is moro costly than it used to be, not only food, and manufactured goods, but' alsa transport and! marketing. Thus, in the absence of competition from out side, the cost of living neutralises the i riso of wages Then wages are raisecl ; again, and up goes everything else, and so on linfil at last the Government takes fright at the prevailing high prices, and s>ees nothing for it but tc hammer them down with a statustc ters. They put up the wages in shillings instead of in the commoditieswagies will buy. A shilling has one value in ore place or country and an other value in another; its purchasing power varies with every cQiange in the market, yet it is regarded by wiageprescribers as a thing that never alters. They put up the wagec in shil lings, not seeing thiat the riecessarier of life will be put up too to most the altered circumstances."