Readers have aired very exhaustively their views regarding the unprecedented increase in the cost of living within the last month and, particularly since the China New Year. A variety of reasons has been offered to explain the extreme upward tendency in prices. These have ranged from the quotation of the economic rule of supply and demand at a time of the year, when spending by China's millions is greater than at other periods, to bald accusations of profiteering by dealers controlling the foodstuffs and commodities of the population of Shanghai, Exchange, of course, has a lot to do with this extraordinary situation but there still remains to be found a logical explanation. Take, for instance, the price of coal which is somewhere about $200 a ton and is likely to go higher. Japan has been a large purchaser throughout the Far East owing to the drought and consequent reduction of hydro-electric power resources, and freights are unusually high in consequence of this factor and the European war but even at $200, or appro: mately £4 a ton, with the possibility of creasing to the equivalent of £6 a ton, coal prices compare unfavourably with Europe where war necessities have transformed market conditions but nothing similar to the extent reflected by such a price in Shanghai. A comparison of local market prices in February last year and February this year would make one believe that all sense of proportion has vanished in this part of the world. Last February coal was $50 a ton, rice $15 a picul and meat was well below a dollar per pound. The householder needs no reminding of the present scale of prices which show daily increases and will refuse to subscribe to the argument that the higher cost of production warrants the disproportionate increase in prices. Some of the most ordinary kitchen items show amazing changes. One simple example suffices. Bamboo shoots, from China's traditional tree, sold at 25 cents a pound last February and are now nearly a dollar a pound. Nobody would say that foreign exchange or any of the other glib assertions should cause this. A similar condition involves all locally-produced foodstuffs which certainly should not be so greatly affected by the factors applying to imports based on foreign exchange. The volume of public protest has not yet induced any official action to control prices but circumstances strongly emphasize the urgency.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.