Prices of goods
Original title: Preços dos Géneros
Introduction to a comparison of Funchal prices of foodstuffs and goods before the First World War (1914) and in 1921, blaming profiteering more than currency depreciation for the rise in living costs.
etc. Below we give the prices of various foodstuffs and other goods now and before the war, so that in future it will be easy to see how much the cost of living has risen in Funchal since 1914 (1921). We believe that the greed and lack of scruple of many merchants, industrialists and farmers have done more to drive up the cost of living than the depreciation of our currency and the increases in taxes and in workers’ wages. These, however, are the causes generally put forward to explain the multiplication of household expenses and the consequent disappearance of the small savings once built up by people of modest means at the cost of great sacrifice.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 01Place
Places mentioned · 01
- Funchal
City whose rising cost of living the price lists document.
The capital of the archipelago and seat of the principal captaincy, where settlement began; it was made a vila c.1451–52. Its bay, the widest in the archipelago, lies between Ponta do Garajau and Ponta da Cruz and offers sheltered anchorage, though its harbour had never been studied oceanographically. The Elucidário discusses it as a health resort with climate data and records the January 1906 disturbances, the Danish prince's visit in May 1846 and recent volcanic cones in the area.