Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1910-09-08
THAT LYING REPORT
Specimen of the Literature of
Protection.
PURE CAMPAIGN HUMBUG


Trust Extortion-It Confuses Diff
ferent Grades of the Same Article to
Buttress Up a False Theory.
Senator Lodge and his standpat col
leagues have issued a report to the
American people which processes to be
a conscientious verdict on the high
cost of living In reality it is the
neatest piece Of humbug that has been
put before the people since DR.. Cooks
discovery of the north pole. 1t is we'll
worth reading as a specimen of the
literature of campaign deception which
has become one of the fine arts.
OF the audacious statements contain
ed in the report the following will serve
as a specimen: On page 81 the COM
mittee gives comparisons of food prices
in this country and in England which,
in it's opinion. show conclusively that
in 1900 prices in the United Kingdom
were on a much higher level than in
the United States" 1t further makes
the statement that bacon was 70 per
cent. beef 60 per cent, mutton 1O5 per
cent, wheat SO per cent and corn 81
per cent higher in England than in
America in 1900. OF course the OBJ
ject in representing the English prices
to be so high ten years ago is to pro-
vide a plausible explanation for the
fact that prices here have since then
risen twice as fast as they have in
England. If the English price level
was so high in 1900 as compared with
ours, then our subsequently rapid ad-
vance in prices is only an attempt to
recover lost ground. and that is the
theory the committee advocates.
But how does it get the above fig-
ures? Simply by Juggling them.
When it says that bacon was 70 per
cent higher in England than 1t was
with us in 1900 it is simply COM
pairing Waterford Qrish) bacon with
Chicago short clear Sides" When
it says that beef was 60 per cent
higher it only means that prime
English beef was selling at nearly Ii
cents a pound wholesale when New
York native sides" were selling at 8
cents a pound. And similarly with
the other commodities. Everybody
who knows anything about Waterford
bacon and the prime roast beef OF old
England knows that these articles are
always much more costly than import
ed varieties and that there is no COM
parison between them. The commit
tee makes the admission that the prices
compared are not for identical articles,
but IL they are not for identical ar
ticles what ground has it for say
ing that lin 1900 prices in the United
Kingdom were on a much higher lever
than in the United States"
The simple truth is that English
prices were higher than American
prices where the English commodity
was Of superior grade to the Ameri-
can commodity. If the method Of
comparison adopted by the committee
is admissible it would be easy to show
from the figures used by it that
English prices were lower in 1900 than
American prices. Thus Chicago ''short
clear Sides are given as selling at
1852 cents a pound, whereas at Liv-
erpool American Cumberland cut"
was in the same year selling at 7.49
cents a pound. Therefore the price
of bacon. instead of being 70 per cent
higher in England than here in 1900,
was actually lower. The prices here
compared are not, of course. for idcn-
teal articles, but they are likely to be
much more nearly Identical than the
articles compared by the committee.
If prices of food products were
higher in England than In this country
in 1900 the committee has brought no
evidence to show it. We do know,
however, that the cost Of transporta-
ton measures the difference in price
In the case of goods shipped from
here to England. AS great deal Of
the foodstuffs used by England comes
from this country we should expect
English prices to be slightly higher
in the case Of those articles. and this
Is probably the truth.
We still want an answer to the ques-
ton which the committee has so
craftily shirked. Let the American
packers and their friends the stand
patters answer it, or judgment goes by
default. 1t is this: Why has American
bacon, as quoted in the report. ad-
vanced in price Sc per cent in ten
years, whereas Irish bacon has adj
vanced only Is per cent? Why has
mutton advanced in price so per cent
in New York in ten years, whereas
Scotch mutton was selling at 4 per
cent less in 1910 than it was in 1900?
We are taking only the figures given
In the report and are interpreting them
In our own way as fairly as we can.
We say that somebody must be max
ing enormous profits at the expense Of
the consumer in this country when we
compare our own precipitous advance
of prices with the moderate advance
shown by the free trade country.