The San Francisco call., 1896-11-10
THAT RISE IN THE
PRICE OF BREAD
1t Is Agitating Bakers and
Dealers Throughout
the City.
And Will Agitate the Public, No
Doubt, if It Be Put
Into Force.
DEALERS STILL PROTESTING.
Tie Result Not to Be Known Until
the Next Meeting of the
Bakers Association.
DEALERS STILL PROTESTING

The threatened advance in the price of
bread is still agitating the mind of the
public and OF dealers in the staff of life
the dealers other than the bakers them
selves.
The bakers who are mem bers of the
Bakers Protective Association are busiIy
engaged circulating a paper not only
along the line within the association but
among all the bakers of the City, seeking
signatures such as will pledge them to the
conditions of the resolutions adopted by
the association.
They are securing signatures very rap
idly among the distributing or wagon
bakers of the City-that is to say, among
the bakers that run wagons and distribute
their wares to the branch bakers, groeers
and other dealers. They are all eager
enough to enter into the compact-con-
tingent. of course, upon every other BAKER
entering and being bound by it..
Should not all enter the combine it
would be impossible to carry out the plan
of the association, for the reason that
competition is so sharp thatl those bound
by the compact would Immediately find
themselves at great disadvantage.
Those who refuse to sign do so for no
other reason than the fear of the loss of
trade. There are numb of grocers and
branch bakeshop-keepers who have estab-
lished their trade on cheap bread-two
loayeS for cents-and who have proved
such good managers and so energetic in
the quest of business that they are allowed
as high as SO per cent commission on
sales. These dealers are loudest in their
protest against the resolutions of the as
sociation which restricts their commits
sion to 25 per cent. They declare that the
master bakers want to take out of the
traffic all that it will bear.
To grasp the situation it must be UNDER
stood that not all The stores that wear the
sign OF bakeries are in fact bakeries. Most
of these get their bread and pies aud
cakes and such things from wagon at
the door every morning instead of out of
an oven in the cellar, as may popularly be
supposed. 1t is the Keepers of these that
are known as "branch stores" that will
suffer from the limitations imposed by the
ission clause in the resolutions of
the association.
1t is the public, however, that is to really
suffer from the proposed combine. The
resolutions forbid the competing bakers
to give over weight in their bread. Moth
ing, however, is said about giving short
weight. The language of the resolutions
is that no baker shall give "more" than
eighteen ounces in a Scent loaf and that
loaves being gauged in the same proper
tion. Many of the bakers now seek to
win trade by giving twenty and twenty
two ounces in The loaves that were sold at
retail for cents. Very many of the
branch stores sell even the heaviest
weight ana best-rated bread to the larger
customers at twenty-four and even thirty
loaves for 81, and many OF the bakers sell
the lighter loaves at two for cents.
The compact for the combine, as stated.
does not require any baker to increase the
weight Of these light loaves, but it re-
quires the dealer to exact cents for them
from the consumer.
Some of the dealers are themselves in
favor of the com bine, declaring that it is
i'm possible to sell bread at cheaper rate
than 5 C nts a loaf and leave the baker
and dealer profit.
The result of the circulation of the COM
pact for signatures will not be known un-
iii those who have it in charge report at
the next meeting OF the Bakers Protective
Association. Until then it cannot be GER
tain that the increase in price that is pro-
posed can be mace to stick.