Daily Kennebec journal., 1911-04-15
CONSUMERS MUST SHOP.
"His9ine" the Only Way to Force
Down Food Prices.

No practical question interests 4
larger number of people than that OF
the price of food. as we have had am
pie evidence in the agitation of the
last two or three years over the in
creased cost of living. says the New
York Journal of Commerce. When
these many people read of the many
reductions in wholesale prices of the
leading food products. they wonder
how it is that they find no correspond
ing decrease at the grocery store or
butcher shop. Official reports declare
that in the last year there has been
a decline of IL to 40 per cent in the
chief staples like wheat, corn, oats,
live cattle and hogs, and products of
the dairy and poultry yard. 1t is no.
ticeable in the household that butter,
cheese and eggs are cheaper lately;
but while wheat is lower by So per
cent. than a year ago, flour has de-
clined only 6l2 per cent. at retail, and
the reduction in price of pork prod
ucts is less than one-half that report
ed for the material from which they
are derived, corn and hogs. Most
cereal foods have been stationary in
are made has fallen 80 per cent. or
more in wholesale cost.
Some reduction is acknowledged and
there are various explanations of why
it has not been greater. The grocer'S
stock may have cost him more than
present wholesale prices indicate, and
he is slow to come down on that ac-
count. His expenses have increased: ::
his profits were narrowed when wnoie-
sale prices We're high, and he feels en-
titled to widen them as these get low
er. The cereal food men say that they
did not reduce their packages or in
crease their prices when the cost OF
materials went up, and now they are
only making up for past sacrifice in
same quantity. There be those who
declare that pure-food laws make
prices high, and opine that pure food
is not cheap food. Others say that
people live better than they used TO.
require more and better things, and
that keeps prices up.
on the other hand there is the ex-
planation of the trust" and the "com-
bine" which buy at the lower prices
of the producer and keep up the price
to the consumer. but fer the most part
the trust and the combine do not keep
retail stores and their prices figure
in wholesale quotations. 1t is even
said that retail dealers have their as
sociations and their agreements In re-
Straint of competition. which nod
prices up; but where competition IS
perhaps sloweSt in asserting Itself is
among the consumers who buy at re-
tail For the most part, outside OF
hotels and restaurants, the buyers or
food do not go shopping. They order
from the butcher and the grocer from
whom they have been accustomed to
trade, probably by telephone. and take
what they get and pay what is chars-
ed. with some grumbling, but with no
effort to do better somewhere else.
Going to market is rather out of fash
ion with families nowadays and there
is not much of that "higgling' at re-
tail that determines normal prices. 1t
NAV be in considerable part the in
crtia of habit in consumers that keeps
up retail prices. Dealers nave little
chance to compete for their custom
and they neglect to compete for favor
by their orders Manchester unton.ss