Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-11-28
Housewives Ask
Federal Action

Continued from Page One
pie Of the United States and to take meas
ures to limit sales for exports to the sur
plus over domestic requirements"
At the same time, an egg boycott was
spreading rapidly and promised to become
countrywide.
with spectators holding gun to the
heads of the American people, your situa-
tion seems to demand drastic measures,
said Quinn. telling why he thought the
United States should establish Government
control Of food prices.
1.-THE storing of eggs. butter, meat, poultry
and like food to boost prices is only less
criminal than the destruction of food to
keep the market up, such as | have seen in
San Francisco.
"I don't want to appear nosey about the
affairs of country whose guest | am, but
when ! see high prices in the United States
where there Is no regulation and compare
It with the reasonable prices and legitimate
profits obtained in my home country of New
South Wales where food prices are con
trolled by the Government, 1t is a strong
temptation to say:
"Go thou and do likewise
Every Monday morning the prevailing
prices for staples are announced by the
Government If the announced price Is
thirty-slX cents for butter the housewife
knows she will pay thrty-six cents and no
more without ample warning. In the
United States the housewife reads quota
tion of forty-three cents for butter and
prays all the way downtown next morning
that 1t won't have jumped nickel Il pound
over night
EGGS AT TWENTY FIVE CENTS IN
AUSTRALIA
"Thanks to our control system, house
wives in Sydney and other =arge cities pay
about twenty-five cents dozen for the
best eggs. Can you imagine that for fresh
eggs here? No. but there is no Legitimate
your American egg barons would like to
hit me with some of their storage eggs for
saying it, no doubt but the reason eggs are
not Is cents here is that the spectators are
holding a pistol to the consumers head.
"At home we provide a reasonable profit
for the producer, one for the wholesaler
and one for the retailer and yet sell many
articles of food at half and less than half
the price you pay here.
"The solution of your storage specua-
tIon problem seems TO me simple. Legisla-
tion prohibiting the sale OF cold-storage
products altogether is the solution.
"There is plenty of food of all kinds in
the United States. The spectators have
got dealers and consumers by the throat.
They have raised the false cry of heavy
exports on account of the war and then
have boosted prices on that artificial theory.
This is situation that could not exist in
New South Wales.
"In Australia we believe that n Govern
ment which cannot control prices for the
benefit of its people is not living up to its
obligations as a democracy.
Can you imagine two-pound loaf of
bread selling in the United States for seven
cents? | think not. Yet that is what the
Australian State bakeries do,
Take a spool of common thread. In
Australia the housewife gets 1000 yards
for a nickel The American housewife gets
1000. This is all the more remarkable
when you consider that all our cotton must
be shipped from England or America as
we grow none.
"Of course many of our dealers chafe
under the fair-price system. just as they
would in the United States, but that doesn't
stop the regulation, Here. II seems to me.
they are permitted to cloud the issue.
Much might be done by the individual
States to solve the price regulation prob
lem"