FIGHTING HIGH PRICES

Northern Advocate, 7 October 1913, Page 2

FIGHTING HIGH PRICES

EFFORTS TO HELP CONSUMERS

SAUSAGE FACTORY SUGGESTED

BERLIN, July 27

A report issued by the Berlin Municipal Statistical Office shows intsructively how municipalities are engaging in direct wholesale and retail trade in food products as a means of fighting high prices. The report says that of sixty-two German towns of over 70,000 population, with a combined population of 15,000,000, all, except two, last year directly traded in meat, in most cases importing foreign meat through their own agents, and selling it in their own shops, or through private retailers at fixed prices. The report says that this municipal intrusion into the domain of one of the oldest retail branches has caused much unpleasantness, and that the result confirms the view recently expressed by the Union of German Cities that it is not a municipality's business permanently to fight high prices or to correct by means of municipal undertakings the failings of the country's fiscal policy.

The aims of the towns was by eliminating retailers' and middlemens' profits to reduce to the consumer prices inflated by import tariffs. The author of the report declines to commit himself as to whether this aim was all round attained, as it is impossible to say what prices would have ruled if the municipalities had not intervened. Some towns report that they managed to cut down prices by from IJd to 2d a pound. The general view is that without municipal competition prices would have been higher than they were. The increase of meat prices in 1912 over prices of 1911 was 6/10 per head of the buying population.

The municipalities in about six months imported 27,000,0001b of foreign meat, of which half came from Russia, and a third from Holland. In addition, the municipalities brought abroad 10,000 head of live cattle, mostly from Holland. The towns had to face difficulties in buying abroad. Berlin appointed a German as agent, under contract to deliver fixed quantities of foreign meat at a fixed price, he taking all risks.

Nearly all towns have during the last months ceased importing foreign meat; but many are making preparations for the future which threaten the native producer. The report contains a list of towns which will produce their own meat on their own farms. In most cases this is confined to raising pork. Not content with this the municipality of Offenbach prepared to start its own sausage-factory. Breslau municipality proposes to breed rabbits for local consumption. The Berlin suburb of SchoeneDerg already does this.