Cost Of Living Mounts In

Nz Pacific Islands

From Our Own Correspondent MANGAIA, Cook Is.

THE recent increase of tea-prices to 8/lb., (in place of former 6/8) has caused much consternation among consumers of the Cup that Cheers —and they are many on this island.

Other grocery lines, including tinned meats, went up in price earlier in the year.

It has been explained to locals that these increases, so much at variance with the pre-election claim that the National Party would at once proceed to “lower the cost of living,” are due to the removal of certain subsidies previously paid by the NZ Government on various commodi ties. Residents, who are told that this removal of a burden on the NZ taxpayer, although it has the effect of making groceries dearer at present, will later prove a benefit, may be pardoned for failing to see how this is to be accomplished. Ris ing food-prices are inevitably followed by increased salaries; and workers’ wages, already high, may have to be further aug mented in the Cl.

Prices here to-day are three times 1935 level. Dress-goods have risen even higher, in view of the disappearance of Japanese supplies of “ninepenny silks.” A rumour is going the rounds that certain trading interests propose to buy heavily in Japan, with a view to flooding the Cl market with cheap dress-material again. This laudable aim appears to depend for its achievement upon whether the Japanese textile workers are still willing to function for ninepence a day. Judging by world wide trends, it is to be feared that the cheap silk and the sixpenny knife (and razor) together with the half-crown clock, are a thing of the past.

Certainly the prices obtained by Cook Islands fruit growers have gone up too, but they have not kept pace with costs.

The gap between income and outgo is widening.

The Rev. Wilfred John Hutton, formerly of Hertfordshire, England, was consecrated Bishop of Carpentaria in St. John’s Angli can Cathedral, Brisbane, on September 21. Thursday Island will be the Bishop’s headquarters. His diocese takes in 600,000 square miles of Northern Australia. The crook which the Bishop carried during his consecration, was carved by Torres Strait natives from local woods and in laid with mother-of-pearl shell.