HIGH FOOD PRICES IN AMERICA

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3012, 24 February 1917, Page 6

HIGH FOOD PRICES IN AMERICA

PROTECTION THE CAUSE

AN INTERESTING REVIEW ! [Mention .iii the cablegrams of food riots in America loud a topical interest to f the following article.] ' Beforo bringing out Some rather startling facts concerning the high prices prevailing in tho "United States at this timo for necessaries and luxuries aliko, one would liko to place emphasis oil the very important fact that no better place than Chicago could be found in all the world for determining this mattor of high and low prices (Btates a Chicago correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian"). It is practically the world's centre for raw product' and !raw material so far as live 'stock, hoof, grain, and lumber are concerned, and to a certain extent iron ore may also 'be-iincluded. Moreover, 21 trunk lines, radiate from it, which means that itians ; every market and ''distributes'to,all points of the comVa'W'.

■ M&ntion Chicago or tho United States to the average' Englishman to-day, and it at once suggests visions of plenty, an easy time, and untold supplies of !,dollars and more dollars. Yet only last year—in. March, to bo exact —I was helping in the arrangements for a huge minstrel and variety show to bo given by the employees of the electric light and power, gas, and telephone companies for the benefit of tho unemployed of that oity. There were in March of last 'year over 250,000 men out of work, and more in New York. The winter of 1914-15 was a. hard one aud the distress very great, not only on account of the lack of work but because of the fearfully high prices then obtaining for everything, necessaries and luxuries. In fact,, the United Charities of Chicago, the city's central relief association, mado urgent call for a quarter of a million dollars over and above usual demands with which to provide for tho charitable requirements of the winter and spring. Wo raised 30,000 dollars for them by our joint show.

It was not until the late summer of last year—l9ls—Shafc men began to go back to work, business quicken, and i signs of prosperity appear once more on the commercial and industrial horizon. But prices for everything continued to advance. Now, it is interest-' mg to note that this advance in prices in its more marked development began about 1912, if not before, and that con-' dtions and. tho outlook in February, 1913,. were such that the head of tho great utility companies of Chicago, gas electric light, and transportation, warned the employees of the Edison Company m particular that they would bo wise to exorcise the greatest thrift and economy, as ho saw nothing hut hard times ahead; and. that, if you please, was fully a year, and a half before the Great War began. He was absolutely "pt> and ih the months that Mowed the eleotnc Tight company, by reason of tho demand for economy in .operation, separated'from two to three' thousand men from its pay-roll, while the Schenectady, in tho ■ East, the Great Goneral Electric Company laid off as many,as 20,000 men at ono stroke. And'these wero 1 but examples of similar happenings in all sections of the country. Yet prices for everything "continued to advance, although .both the consumption and demand were very much lowered. Then when tho war camo conditions more nearly approached a panic for over six months, and money was withdrawn from circulation ahd,.sboht.'.as'.sparingly as possible. _ Tho banks- among themselves, in point of fact, declared a moratorium.

Tho.original eauso which has made possible the control : of prices, and which to-day has been aided and abetted to a' quite marked extent by the .Great War, with its excess of moneycurrency—general employment, and consequent increased demand for primary products and manufactured goods m certain linos,- is simply andl solely high Protection. High Protection has made possible the a'bsoluto control of prices by what are termed tho-trusts or "interests," but which may be.more aptly described as "rings." Rings that include middlemen and barnacles of every description. Rings which aro linked together one with another', seeing that tho elevation oF price oxtends from apples and milk evou unto steel rails. And as a •chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so'the most .vulnerable link in tiTo system and the one most jealously fought over and guarded is tho transportation—that is, tho haulage—of commodities from one part of the country to the other. Time was v/hmi judicious discrimination in ratos ■ for freight could freeze' out this or that individual, nrin,-or cvon locality, but the Government has stepped iu.as to that, and now tho, same result is achieves in other ways—'boycott, dolay, and oven loss of cars iu transit. It is all very easy whon you know how, but you must not be found out. Tho American who works for a wage . aud sees its averago,purchasing power become loss and less knows that it is the price "rings" that aro throttling him, and ho asks you to toll him why it is that all maunor of American canned goods—fruit, salmon, or meat— could before the war bo bought cheaper abroad than at home—for a third less, indeed—and why American steel rails cost a third moro in America than in, say, South Africa or Japan. Yet it was so beforo the war. , Prices havo advanced 30 to 40 por cent, over what thoy wore m 1912, and oven so they i wore then high, and now cheap money,, the gold influx, and a really legitimate fcaucio—-that (of in-' creased demand—aro carrying them up still further. Tho averago householder has been jiard put to, it. to "carry on" under, existing conditions. Bread in Chicago ivas last year, as high as in London, and it has been going up. Steak that could bo bought five years ago for 18 cents a pound, to-day costs 32 or more. Eggs in Chicago last year were soaring up to 6Q and- even 70 cents a dozen, and (were only brought down-by'drastic action on the part oi various .women's organisations and the approach of spring. , The other day best egfej wero quoted at a dollar a dozen in New York. Two cents equal a penny English money. Apples rot in Michigan orchards, and the farmers aro too lazy and too sure of a certain price, thanks to their ring of middlomeu, to collect them, .whilo in tho cities thoy are cxpousivo beyond understanding. On the. . other hand, in Illinois villages within 40 miles of the Chicago stockyards ono cannot get decent moat oven at a big price. This also, thanks to the ring. Milk advances until commissions aro I appointed, as in tho caso right now in j to find out tho reason why. For surely the war has nothing to do with this. Coal is so high—hard coal —that commissions aro also at work in various States seeking out the cause. Londoners aro in point of fact now experiencing some of the.high prices that always confront Americans, for their beof barons and coal kings aro no mere fiction. If tho British public is long-suffering, the American is still moro «o. And over there now, as here, there is always the excuse —almost an unanswerable one—"Oh, it is tho war." J.M.C.H,