The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1910-12-27
HIGH PRICES Do NOT
CURTAIL RATI0NS
Bacon Still Basis for Meals of
Enlisted Men, Though 1t Is
Traded for Extras.

Estimates have just been submitted
to the war department for feeding the
army for the current year. says the
Washington Star. The same sort of a
ration that he has always had for
twenty.one and a fraction cents.
This may seem little surprising to
the private citizen who has been paying
thirty.four cents pound for breakfast
bacon. For the current conception of
the army ration is beans and bacon,
with bacon and beans by way of
variety.
The fact is that foodsuffs of all sorts
have gone up. 1t is costing more per
man to feed the army than it has ever
cost before, but even at that the en-.
listed man has the best of the private
citizen in what he eats and what he
pays for it.
Not the Lean Bacon.
Bacon costs more and the soldier
does not eat the sort of bacon that the
householder insists on having with his
eggs in the morning. But the govern
ment buys in such huge quantities and
the army contracts are so sharply con
tested for among the bidders that the
commissary department is able to buy
for much less than the retail market
price.
With pigs selling at ten cents a
pound on the hoof, the more weight a
farmer can make his pigs put on, the
more he will realize in the market The
/ light weight pigs. out of which the
finest breakfast bacon is made, are a
luxury Nature would grow them, but
the farmer intervenes. The result is
he feeds his pigs to the waddling point
The army can get this fat bacon fol-
nineteen cents pound, Five years ago
the department was paying from eleven
to thirteen cents pound for the same
bacon and thought that was high.
Food Prices ALI Up.
The army officers who do the buying
say that everything else has advanced
in proportion. Potatoes, flour and fresf
meat have all gone up almost in the
same proportion as bacon. The pur
chasing officers say there is no prospect
of their coming down.
The dealers, the farmers and the Gus
toners have all been gradually educat
ed up to the higher prices. Farmers
and dealers are not going to let the
education go to waste, If they can
help it.
In spite of big crops and production
overtaking population, which it is do
ing, according to the report of the see
retary of agriculture, the commissary
officers say no material drop of prices
is likely.
So the enlisted man keeps. on being
j fed as usual. The army ration. thii
year is as it was five years ago. NJ
healthy, hungry man could eat it al
if he tried
Commissary Swaps Bacon.
It is not intended that it should al
y be eaten, at least not in just that form
I Each company commander looks afte,
his own mess. What is left over, in thu
way of regular rations not consumed
he is at liberty to commutate into othe
eatables.
So that. with the aid of the uneateI
part of the regular ration, the mess car
buy things not on the regular ration
!, list and thus secure variety. How
much this saving is and how great thu
variety depends on the managing capa
J city of the company commander an(
his mess sergeant.
They are housekeepers like othe
housekeepers. On their personal skill
and attention depend what sort of
bin of fare is served to the men.
So prices have gone up And tn
problem of the commissary general AM
; the officers under him is to make a dol
lar do what fifty cents would have don
a few years ago.
They are doing it as well as they car
BY baying craftily and in quantities
they have so far managed to keep tn
price of the ration down TO figures tina
would astonish the average house
keeper.
That is the reason the enlisted ma
still has bacon, even if it is fat. TIL
secretary of agriculture says the house
keepers of the cities can solve the prof.
leb to some extent by cooperative buy
ing, but the question is whether the
will.