THE PRICE-CUTTING WAAE IN FRANCE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160737, 25 August 1920, Page 10

THE PRICE-CUTTING WAAE IN FRANCE.

That the price-cutting wave may be part of a world-wide movement is indicated by the news from Franco. As a Paris correspondent of the Hew York Times puts it in war-timo phraseology, “the Fronch offensive against the high cost of living has carried the firstline trenches.” He continues; At Havre and Marseilles several groups of large wholesale and retail stores have had to give way before popular pressure and have announced 10 to 25 per cent, reduction on their prices. The method being pursued all over the country is to talk find write about la baisse as persistently as the high cost was talked about formerly in the hope that talk may result in action. At first traders and shopkeepers shrugged their shoulders and smiled when customers began to talk about lower prices. Now they are anxious. They feel the terrible end to their long regime of high profits is beginning, for, in response to daily clamour of newspapers and customers, soma members of the fraternity are weakening and are showing symptoms of wishing to capture trade by lowering prices and starting a competitive battle rather than staying in unofficial profit-making combines. Every morning, paper records fully the differences of prices in various parts of the city, and welcomes with paeans of praise any shopkeeper wdio risks the displeasure of Ins fellows by lowering his gains. By afternoon his shop is crowded. The effect is obvious. The morale of the surrounding tradesmen is being badly shaken, and the whole city begins to feel tho effects. It is especially foodstuffs that am being affected. Crops are splendid and farmers and market gardeners can no longer ask what they please for fresh fruit and vegetables. At the central markets every morning there is more than enough to meet the demand, and no longer any excuse for keeping up prices.- The attempt was made, hutpublicity has killed it. For the first time in five years tho shops are announcing in flaming posters “great fall in prices.” The fall is not yet in any way commensurate with the steady increase of the last five years, but it is beginning, and beginning is better than nothing at all. Manufactured goods are harder to bring down in price. The happy discovery, however, that leather costs now, on account of prohibition of export, far less than it did has led to a newspaper campaign for cheaper boots, and as among the greengrocers andbutter merchants the weaker brethren among the bootmakers lare weakening. Another phase of the campaign has been a sudden revolt among the retailer’s themselves against the wholesalers and manufacturers. Their federation, which includes almost all retail dealers in the country, has passed a resolution urging all customers to buy as sparingly as possible, for only in that way they say can the retail dealers secure lower prices from manufacturers. While not entirely blameless themselves, they are striving to fix tho blame higher up in the scale and are adding strength to tho commission of tho Chamber of Deputies, which has just begun work inquiring into the extent of speculation and profit-making with a view to taking legal action against the most notorious offenders.