The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1914-08-18

vast amount of food. They export
every year about s500,O00,000 worth.
The greater part of that vast volume
is now being kept at home.
Yet the prices of food stuffs are
going up in America at a frightful
rate. Why is it? Isn't there some
"shenanigan" about it? Aren't the
American people being "done?"
The government of the United
States and District Attorney Whit
man of New York believe there is
great deal of 'shenanigan" about it.
They are at work to prove it. And
what they expect to prove is equiva-
lent to a conspiracy on the part Of
the larger operators to make profit
out of America on the basis of war
prices in Europe.
They may prove it. If they do,
however, it will be the greatest sur
prise of the war. Because, while
there has been some unnecessary and
avoidable advance in certain Ameri-
can food prices, the rises which are
of most Importance to us all have
not needed any help. Those rises were
inevitable from the day when Ger
many, Holland, France, Great Bri-
tain, Austria and Russia-any of all
of them-were included in the con-
fiict.
Unjustiied Advances Only In Side
Lines
The unjustified advances are due to
excitement, to alarm, to general un-
certainty, to greed. They affect only
side lines. A great house sees prices
advancing in products allied with its
own. 1t responds to the rising mar
ket. A rival house, nothing the adj
vance of its neighbor, does likewise.
For the moment the advance becomes
world advance.
In such cases, whether the artificial
price is based upon greed or some
thing else, it is practically certain to
break and break soon. We may ex-
pect adjustment there within two or
three weeks. But the foodstuffs in
which we are most concerned are not
in this class.
Why Has Sugar Shot Up?
What about sugar? Meat? Canned
goods? Flour? Oatmeal? Beans?
Wheat? Fish? Some of them have
gone to double the price of two weeks
ago. Is this due to excitement, or
alarm, or general uncertainty, Or
greed?
We shall understand the situation
best by considering particular COM
modify. Sugar is, perhaps, the COM
modify about which most of US are
indignant No one believes the Ameri-
can Sugar Refining company is phil
anthropic institution. The American
people, not to put too fine a point
upon it, are extremely suspicious of
everything that company does. Twen-
| ty days ago hundredweight of sugar
cost the wholesaler in Minneapolis
$470 Today it is STRONG" at $3.50.
The reason that sugar is $3.50 in
Minneapolis Thursday is that sugar
is $3.50 in Melbourne, Australia. The
company with any large supply of
sugar to sell can sell it today in any
one of hundred ports, secure from
| YoolactaffAyo o+ for CT IN he
dred pounds. an that case,'' says
the operator to himself, "why sell it
in America for less?"
But why has sugar gone up in Mel
bourne, or Nagasaki, or Rio de JAM
GIRO? Because about 40 per cent of
the sugar of the world is beet sugar
from Germany and Russia. Nearly
half the worlds supply is withdrawn
from the worlds markets by the pres
ent war.
No Reduction In Sight
This is the month of heaviest sugar
consumption. The supply has been
drawn to its lowest level. Every
country is buying sugar and eager
to get it. So the price goes up and
up. And all the committees of con.
gress will never be able to get it dowr
until the market rights itself.
When will that be? 1t will not be
next year, if the war is not quickly
ended. The tillers of sugar beet fields
in Germany and Russia are not al
their work these days. They are in
their regiments. And this is the
month when the beets need most care
full attention. If they do not get it
the worlds supply of next year viii
shrink by the greater part of 40 pei
cent.
Furthermore, the American crop o.
sugar beets is threatened for mex
year. Our seed comes frem Germany
Who can tell if there will be an,