COST OF LIVING

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 57, 8 March 1920, Page 8

COST OF LIVING

AMERICA'S TROUBLES

EGGS AT 5t A DOZEN

PLIGHT OP SALARIED CLASSES.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LOS ANGELES, 11th January.

The cost of living Th the United) States is mounting steadily, and the poor are suffering severely. The country is extraordinarily prosperous at the present time, and this prosperity is quite real, but. it is shared only by the few. This few includes the highly-paid skilled tradesmen, who were never so rich in their lives. It is the salaried man who is feeling the pinch. There appears to be plenty of work, yet thousands are looking for any kind of employment anywhere. Tile State employment offices are besieged' by hosts of men and women every day.

With the possible exception of sugar, there is no real shortage of any article of food. Mr. Hoover states that sixteen to twenty million tons of food more than necessary for American consumption will be the yield from thie year's crop. He added that the continuing high retail prices were due largely to the "appalling psychology of the public in buying expensive things." That is largely the trouble—the high cost of high, living.

SPECULATION IN SUGAR.

The sugar situation is a peculiar one. The present high price of sugar, in the opinion of conservative sugar interests in Havana, is not due to the law of supply and demand, but to the wildest speculation in the product that Cuban sugar mill owners and brokers can recall. Everyone seems to be speculating in sugar futures. The only ones who appear to be out of the market are th» refiners and some manufacturers, and they are not buying because they are afraid there will be a great slump following the present speculation. Then they would have on their hands large quantities of expensive sugar, which would represent immense losses. Cuba will soon be producing 200,000 tons of sugar weekly, which should relieve any real shortage. England has bought 300,000 tons less this past season from Cuba.

A MILLIONAIRE HOARDER.

Sugar had become so scarce in Chicago that for daya and days many families had to go without. New prices have been fixed and a drive on profiteers and hoarders commenced. Several have been arrested for selling at more than 7-^d per pound in Los Angeles. Hule'tt C. Merritfc, a Pasadena millionaire, was found guilty of sugar hoarding and sentenced to five months' imprisonment and ordered to pay a fine of £1000. He is at liberty pending decision on appeal. Very few such cases are heard of.

SUGAR AT Is -A POUND.

It is predicted that the new Hawaiian crop will sell for more than 6d per pound, which would mean a retail price for granulated sugar of about 9d. This advance is to be looked for early in the year, it is said. Later, it would not surprise those in the line if the figure went up to Is. Federal control has been reimposed.

DIET AND CLOTHING.

Eggs this winter have fetched as high as 5s a dozen in New York, and passed the dollar in San Francisco and Los Angeles. As the result of a boycott of housewives in Chicago. esfg3 dropped from 3s 2id to 2s B^d. Butter is a shade under os.

Many local authorities are inquiring into the price of milk, which is about 8d a quart. It is freely asserted that a Japanese merchant controls the entire potato market of the Pacific Coast, and the price has advanced- almost 100 per cent, in three months. Potatoes now cost State institutions 18s 3d per 1001b, taking the figures at the normal rate of exchange. The price of beans climbed from £1 per 1001b sack to £2 9s, between the original purchaser and the consumer.

A suit of clothes costs up to £16. Some clothing manufacturers are said to believe that men's suits now selling for £11 'could be sold at a profit for £5, if an arrangement could bo work«d out between mills, manufacturers, and retailers, whereby a certain pei'centage of busines3 could be devoted to goods of standard quality to be turned out in large quantities. CRACKS IN FINANCIAL STRUCTURE. After reviewing America's remarkable prosperity, a prominent critic says : — ■'_AU very fine, but there is a reverse side to the picture. Cracks are beginning to appear in our financial structure. The stock market is a barometer, oven though it does not always register truly, and it is wobbling. Even the bond market is uncertain, and, while attractive issues sell with fair rapidity, there ■is a growing tendency -to wait. Mora people are turning back to the land. Our prosperity is beginning to assume a hectic quality. The situation is unsatisfactory. Buying is too . feverish ; extravagance is unwholesome. High' prices continue with no sign of an abate- ! ment. The food cost level rises from | month to month. Hay is £7 10s a ton. It used to be £2. The unproductiveness of labour continues. Farseeing men believe that a drastic readjustment i 3 much nearer than .it ■ seems.. Strikes cannot continue without materially affecting the purchasing power of the country. Many dealers have purchased heavily of commodities which they are holding for still higher prices. The orgy of spending is drawing to a close, and when it is over these shelf profits may be turned into losses overnight. Bank credits in some parts of the country have been strained to the utmost to carry these stocks and maintain prices at unprecedented levels. Enormous stocks of hemp, hides, leather, grain products, meats, and textiles have been accumulated, and New York warehouses are said to hold £50,000,000 -worth of silk fibre. In spite of this the price of raw silk may be sent to £4 per pound.

OFFICIAL ACTION.

A report by officials of the city of Los Angeles shows that while production in this part of the State has increased abnormally prices have done the same; that there is a restraint of trade through the action of some wholesalers-in compelling retailers to sell at a fixed price, and that producers of almost every article of food in the State have been organised into very close associations, which have eliminated competition and compelled wholesalers to pay whatever is demanded.

The Federal Attorney-General, Mr. A, Mitchell Palmer, a Presidential aspirant, has suggested a somewhat nebulous programme consisting of organisation of fair prices. committees, organisation of women to refuse to buy anything but actual necessities until price 6 come down; holding of "conservation and economy meetings" in every community under the auspices of civic bodies; and Jiifluence of mayors and prosecuting attorneys to be brought to bear on the "warring elements to prevent factional disturbances in industry," and particularly to bring about industrial peace for at least six months. He also proposes

the remobiliGation of the "four minute men" to deliver "work and save" addressee in theatres each night. . ARMY STORES OPENED. The Government has opened shops in various cities to dispose of army stores and to reduce the cost of living, and enormous business i 6 done at rates far below thosa of any retailer. Warnings have been issued against profiteering, but very little has been done.