The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1912-10-31
HIGHER SHOES AS
WELL AS BEEF

The disturbance Of the arithmetieal
raia,;on between the number Of human
beings and of the bovine Iahlly hnds
more than one expression. ihe INST
and the loudest has of course been the
consumers agitation oheeIning the
nrire he must pay if be would continue
10 eat beef there the equation is the
noors foycihle because it is so direct.
Rnt there are disguised applications.
He must now pay more' upon that
same account. for some OF the things
he wears or uses. Ii makes little diff
Ference whether he is well-tO-do or
poor: if the former. he pays me toll in
his automobile upholstery II he is
forced to walk. he must pay the price
in shoe leather.
Already there has been general ac
vance of 10 to Is per cent m the
wholesale prices of shoes IN the at
temnt to Keep pace with the steady
rise in leather and further advance is
firmly expected by the trade TO occur
in the near future. The all-r0und i'm
provement in general business VIII ald
in accelerating its arrival.
IL shoes to the consumer 10 not thus
further advance, the only apparent
Tentative is that an inferior shoe be
nroduced for the same price. The shoe
must follow the side of leather, and
that the raw hide. The only effective
relief would CONSIST in an Increased
domestic cattle supply; and that would
not be of any particular peneht' even
were it physically possible Tor a period
of one or two years at least Some
small relaxation might be brought
about by an excessive increase 10 the
imnortations of raw material. Substi-
tuition might, in the course Of eight OF
ten months, cause some change m the
relative values of the different feathers
but this would not affect the general
trend of the leather market.
The original cause is clear enough.
The domestic hide supply has not kept
pace with the population. In 1900 the
proportion of cattle in this country pei
capita was .S2; in 1910 it had declined
to .67. and in 1912 to .6l. In other
words population has increased in that
time Is per cent, while cattle supply
has decreased seven per cent. The
same changes which have been going
on in the United States have been go
ing OH practically throughout the
world. 1t is another instance of the
universally of increase in living cost.
In calfskins, which enter tree of duty
and now form so respectable a proper
tion of shoe material, our resort Of
to foreign sources is largest; imports
here constitute 80 per cent Of the sup
ply. the packer kill is but five per cent
and the country kill l5 per cent, 1t il
the latter two that have Jagged. Tht
import in the past fiscal year reached
20, 600, 900, against II, ,000,O 600 in 1871.
and Ia, 900, 900 in 1910. This gain, how
ever, which is only 10 per cent over tn,
three-year average. has merely takeI
care of the increasing use of calfskin
partly in substitution for cloth ant
goatskin. This fact is sufficiently at
tested by a current price of about 2
cents, as against II cents one and twu
years ago.
In cattle hides the course of event
has been analogous. Here the impor
now makes up as per cent of total sup
ply, while packer kill accounts for 3
per cent and the country kill fol 20 pc
cent; and both of these again hav
been the laggards in recent years. Th
enforced resort to foreign supplies
chiefly Argentine, led to the importa
tion in the the past fiscal year 0
Z, $50, 900 hides, as against 4,3OO, 600
1911. This increase of 16 per cent
however, over what was really an eh
year has had no price effect, as test
fled by an average adagnce of 10 pt
cent sover the level of hide quotation
of year ago and of 29 per cent ov,
two years ago.
1t is noteworthy that the bill we pa
for foreign skins and hides has sinC
1890 been multiplied fivefoId. rising
the interim from 500, 600, 900 to $l00
900, 600. We have to depend more upC
foreign hides. and we must pay MOI
for them. The shoe trade, run now c
such close margins of cost, would see
to have very little reserve left of il
genuity or of economy to absorb an
more of the basic burden of cost. 1t
to the stock-raising farmer, not to tt
shoe maker, that the consumer mut
look for any appreciabIe relief.