The Waikato Times WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1911 DEAR FOOD.

Waikato Times, Issue 12178, 13 September 1911, Page 4

The Waikato Times WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1911 DEAR FOOD.

The increased cost of food is creating. a most unpleasant position in France. The " dear food " riots, as they are termed, axe engaging! special space in the daily press, and will doubtless give economists, something to ponder on. Matters have progressed on both sides, for while oil the -one hand we have l th& disaffection spreading, there appears, on the other, to be a laudable attempt on the part of the authorities to rectify the evil. Cables yesterday stated that a committee hadl drawn up a market talde foil J the purpose of regulating prices, and there <is also a disposition on the part o4 the authorities to allow of colonial meat to enter the country and go bring this commodity within reaoh of the people. To-day's cables give instances of some of the reductions whioh are being made in the prices of foodstuffs, and from them it will be noticed that the necessaries of | life are being reduced to an extent which should 'do something towards relieving tbe tension that prevails an parts of France at the present time. But at the same time the mere levelling-up of prices can only be at best a temporary relief. Prices are j controlled by supplies, and if the I supplies are inadequate to the demand the prices must harden. To remedy the whole matter will mean striking .at the fundamental principle of cost of production, and this Is a problem which we confess there is little prospects of solving. The tariff barriers alone force prices up ; labor troubles mean expense and Inaction ; rumors of war have a paralysing effect on financial concerns, so that it is easily seen that there Is not one common factor in dear food, but a combination of circumstances over which no one can hold absolute control. In America prices are kept up

by trusty ' and combines. They exist in nearly every line ct' ths world's commerce and even the trust-smash- ! ing (machinery of the United States cannot ibe said to have had the effect it was (hoped to obtain. So we are forced to fall /back on the tinkering process such as the authorities, at Roubaix are practising; at the present time, and the l market tabl'3 system must be accepted as commendable seeing that other methods are hopeless. The cost of liv\ig> is increasing on all sides, and where the end is going to be is hard to forecast.