MEAT BOYCOTT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 74, 30 March 1910, Page 7

MEAT BOYCOTT.

IN THE UNITED STATES. PRICES HIGHER THAN BEFORE. By Telegraph.— Preis Association.— Copyright. (Received March 30, 0 a.m.) NEW YORK, 29th March. Tho meat boycott in the United States is ending. Prices aro higher than at tho outset of the boycott. Mr. James Wilson, Secretary for Agriculture, declared that the increase in tho production of foodstuffs does not keep pace with the increase in population. In January taut, believing that the shortage of cattle in the stock-raising States was not wholly responsible for tho clearness of beef, 11,000 heads of families in Cleveland pledged to abstain from meat for sixty days. The Labour Unions helped to forward the boycott, whicn, wit Inn a few days, spread throughout the Mississippi Valley. In a few days over a million persons had pledged theniselvcs to abstain from eating meat. In some places prices came down as a consequence. Writing of tho boycott, tho San Francisco Chronicle remarked :— High prices are an index of prosperity. High retail prices are an index of the prosperity of labour, for labour, under the modern system, enters very largely into the retail cost of goods delivered. In the cities they are also an index of the prosperity of landlords, for tho bigger tho city tno higher the rents. If we look back a few hundred years we must recognise that there has been a continuous upward tendency in prices, often checked, with occasional recessions, but in the long run advancing. That is generally attributed to the relative increase of tho precious metals and of whatever forma of credit are available to pay bills. Still another cause is the incrcaso of comfort, which makes constantly increasing demands for all products of labour. In the caso of some commodities — meat, for example — it is evident that if population is not increasing taster than meat animals, it is certainly increasing faster than cheap meat animals, for agriculture has driven cattlo from millions of acres of range*, and it costs more to produce meat on cultivated farms than on the freo ranges. At the present prices of hay and grain it it vidently impossible to produce meat as cheaply as in 1897. In January, 1897, feed barley was quoted at 85 cents per cwntal; now it is $1 37±. There is a still greater diffprenco m tho price of hay. As to the "beef trust," it doubtless does its best to raise the price of meat, but, unfortunately, it can only live by underselling independents, for nothing prevents butchers from buying and slaughtering their own stock as formerly, except that it would cost them mere. Upon the whole, initotd of worrying about the high prices of meat and other things, let us be thankful that we have the money to nay the price. l '