The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-07-18
HOW TO REDUCE THE
 COST OF LIVING.

In an article on '"The Cost of Llv- ing'', in the Engineering Magazine fo1 July, Alex. Del Mar. former director of the U. s. Bureau of Statistics and who is considered an authority on phe- nomena of finance. makes a close analysis of the matter and finds that since 1900
 Wholesale prices have advanced about a third: retail prices of food over a third; the average mans out lay for rents and services about third; for clothing and household goods. over third: the cost of the workingman's food (alone) about 30 pel cent, and the prices of export goods (staples) alone. about one-half or 5t per cent; the general result being that. taking quantity. quality and numbers into consideration, the aver age cost of living in the United States has risen about a third, with a decided tendency to still further advance.
 Coming to the causes of the en- hanced cost of living, MT. Del Ma1 says:
 The principal ones assigned by the various authorities who have exam ined the subject are as follows: l. the tariff; 2 monopolies; 3, combinations and 'tgentlemanly understandings to enhance the prices of manufactures and farm products; 4. increased pro- duction of gold; ,. the demands of labor; 6, exhaustion of natural re- sources; ', heightened standard of liv- ing: 8. extravaganza of living; and 2, the congestion of population in cities.
 But he does not find that any of them. or all of them together, are suf- ficient to explain the whole extent of the rise" Stating that about 35,000, 900 in gainful occupations and that they earn about s34,OOO, GOO, GOO year and expend about sSO.o0O. 100000 he proceeds to dis cuss the alleged causes of the ad- vanced cost of living, as follows:
 The tariff last year yielded little over $500. 900. GOO: the increased produc- ton has nothing to do with prices un- less the gold is coined into money and employed in the circulation. The amount so coined and employed is too trivial in comparison with the national measure of the cost of living to be worthy of consideration in this con- nection: the demands of labor are pri- marily and mainly consequence rather than a cause of the enhanced cost of living; the heightened standard of living. the extravaganza of living and the economical effects of urban congestion are all included in the ElSanI1C figures Wn1cn norm the DctS6 of the problem; the exhaustion of nat Gral resources is offset by the discov- cry and utilization of new resources; i; while neither is sufficiently tangible to practically contribute anything to- wards a solution of the question.
 There can be no doubt MT. Del Mar says, that among the alleged causes the influence of monopolies, combina- tions and understanding made in restraint of trade or with the object to maintain or advance prices, is the principal one, nor can it be disputed that the tariff. by creating or uphold ing monopolies. has largely contrib uted toward the rise.''
 But MT. Del Mar finds two other inn portant causes. the total weight of taxation and the expansion of the cur rency In 1909 the Federal govern ment disbursed over s1 ,00o. 900, ,O0O: the annual expenditures of State, county, city and town governments probably aggregate s1,5O0, COG, ,OOO-a total of $2,- 800, ,00o,00 Taxes to meet Federal ex- penditures fall chiefly upon articles of consumption, and State and local tax ation rests mainly upon lands and houses; in each case the cost of living is enhanced by these taxes. This total taxation of s2.5OO, 100000 forms a heavy weight upon the annual earn ings of s34, 100000 OO0
 MT. Del Mar also considers currency expansion an important cause of the enhanced cost of living. He allies with it "the velocity of money, which in this country 'is probably not less than 60 times a year, or once in 6 days'-that is, "all the dollars in cir culation are used over and over again in payments 50 times during the year. He attributes fully one-tenth of the rise of prices during the past decade" to the increased velocity of money.
 With regard to the future, MT. Del Mar says:
 If we permit our judgment to be guided by three or four great lines of national figures. which. ever since the foundation of the Republic, have ex- hibited a constant though not uniform rate of increment, the future level of prices. concretely the future cost of living. unless modified by a radical change of fiscal policy, seems almost inevitably bound to rise still farther. These lines of figures represent the steady growth of population; the steady growth of productive capacity; the steady increase of circulating money and the inceaSe of the trans porting facilities and credit devices which enhance it's velocity; and the recent and enormous increases of tax ation Federal. State and 1ocal,) which. from something less than one billion in 1897, has now reached tWo-and-a-h half billions and is still pointing upward.
 The future. as indicated by these lines, points to still higher prices.
 Unless modified by a radical change of fiscal policy. the future cost of living is likely to be still higher than at present. The problem is then to secure such modification. What shall it be, and how shall it be secured?
 Lessened Federal. State and munich pal expenditures. which would permit lessened taxation; checking of the monopolies and combinations which maintain or advance prices: tariff re- vision downward-do not these points constitute the .:racidal change of fiscal policy" which is needed to reduce the