The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-10-02
WAR PRICES FOR MEAT
EXPLAINED by WILSON


War prices for beef have apparently
reused some observers to fighting
pitch. Chicago market reports quoting
steers at s11 a hundred weight. "the
highest recorded at the Union Stock
Yards since the civil war" happen to
appear just at a time when the price
OF beef is a topic of lively tariff de-
bate. Woodrow Wilson's address in
Syracuse. at the state fair, sets the
discussion going. The New York Com
mercial Conn thinks that meat prices
make a particularly pregnant illus
tration" OF how the tariff works, be-
cause in this field conditions are less
complicated, can be more easily stript
from accessory facts to a few naked
essential things. and the movement of
these essentials more specifically
traced" Apparently, this may be true
without diminishing any OF the heat of
the debate over essential facts and
figures. For while the Commercial ac-
cepts Governor Wilson's statements
and statistics as proving "a clear-cut
sheer case of tariff robbery, from the
truth of which there is no appeal" the
ST. Louis Globe Democrat (Rep.) pub
lished in a great packing center, says
that the governor misstated facts in
the Syracuse speech, and finding him
self unable to throw the figures, he
fouled them, by tripping"
The point of the democratic candi-
dates discourse that is most argued is
this statement:
1.-THE price of meat has gone up in
the United States 80 and 40 per cent.
within ten years. and the price of Am
erican meat has not gone up a fraction
of a cent a pound in the London mar
kets. American meat is selling cheap
er in England by 80 or 40 per cent than
10 Is selling in the United States, and
when gentlemen who are engaged in
this monopoly tell me that 1t is because
of the circums tances of local supply
and demand, l ask them how 1T is that
local supply and demand, how 1t is that
economic laws change when you put
the product on satl water and send 1t
across"
Some of the protectionist editors
vigorously challenge this. The Globe
Democrat, quoting the London Daily
Telegraph as it's authority, says that.
for one example, in England during
the past year American meats have
advanced from Is to 20 per cent dur
ing the time in which the prices of all
other meats in that marPet, domestic
and imported, have been advancing -
The St. Louis editor then contrasts
other conditions:
To meet such advances the working
classes of England are not nearly as
well prepared as are those OF this
country The British Board of Trade
has made plain admission of this fact
In comprehensive report of compar-
alive wages and prices, leading to the
conclusion, which is freely made, that
the higher wages paid over here wipe
out the difference in living cost and
leave a balance in favor of our protect
ed labor The professors foul disqual-
ifies him for problem wrestling"
To the argument that an advance in
prices is reported "all over the world,
Governor Wilson replies:
YES, they have, and they have risen
faster and higher in high-tariff coun-
tries than in low-tariff countries. This
wall OF the tariff enabled certain gen
tlemen to get behind it and to say:
Now we are all of us together secure
against foreign competition. Why cut
one another's throats? Why not get
together"
The meat-packers did get together,
Governor Wilson relates, evaded TIE
law and set prices as high as they
pleased:
81 am not imagining this. 1t came
out In the trial of the meat packers.
There was a circular letter which, in
the politest terms, suggested the APP
propriate prices for the various kinds
of meat, and with a gentility quite un-
surpassed in the history of business
etiquette the suggestion was always
accepted. What law can prevent your
accepting suggestion? The tariff
gave these men the chance to do the
thing which has produced the high
prices"