§ Sir A. Bossomasked the President of the Board of Trade (1), in view of the official announcement that imported goods are 2s, 2d. in the £ cheaper than a year ago, if he will give in some official publication a list of the raw materials that have been so reduced in cost.
(2) if he will publish each quarter a list of the changes in cost of the certain range of imported goods that periodically or spasmodically fluctuate, to enable the public to be better informed as to what time elapses between the alteration in price of certain imported raw materials and this variation reaching the consumer through British manufacturers or retailers.
§ Sir D. EcclesThe article on wholesale price index numbers which appears once a month in the Board of Trade Journal includes a table showing monthly index numbers of prices of the principle materials imported into the United Kingdom; and the Monthly Digest of Statistics includes a table giving monthly average prices of various commodities, including some foodstuffs. In addition, a great many specific market prices are quoted regularly in the daily and trade72W papers. The time which elapses between the purchases of raw materials and the sale of products made from them varies widely; but home costs are four or five times as important as import costs in the final prices of manufactured goods.