The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-11-19

I Wall street turned its attention this week
 to a new phase of the European war,
 the rapidly soaring cost of living. It was only a very few years ago that the
 west, when good times were being fore
 casted, invariably expressed It's enthu-
 siasm by predicting "n wheat" Today
 corn is well above s1, wsth wheat beyond
 the g market After the European war
 began on August l, 1914, wheat sold at
 S6M cents bushel, corn 72% cents. Since then wool has advanced from 20 cents pound to 45; print cloth from 2s cents
 yard to 6; the average selling price of eight basic steel products from S3OH a
 ton to s63. 75; the selling price of a pound of cotton has advanced from 7A cents
 to above 20; copper from 121s cents
 pound to 321a.
 | When the European war first broke out 1 the sensational development was the tre-
 mendous increases in prices of chemicals
 going into the manufacture of war sup plies. But in that case no one in this | country seemed to care because 1t was | only a question of raising our selling
 prices to include the higher cost of raw material. Next came the growing scarcity of raw materials for all lines of manu- | factures. But those increases, too, in | the face of the unprecedented exports and rapidly increasing countrywide pros perity were overlooked.
 | Now we have arrived at point where
 the everyday cost of living Is rapidly mounting to dizzy heights. Wall streets way of expressing its concern Is to ask | seriously if the country is not being
 drowned by the flood of gold imports.
 During the 27 months which have elapsed since the outbreak of the war, this coun- ! try has imported no less than S945 600 gold. Under the new federal reserve law | that increased supply of gold can be used | by the banks as the basis for an ex- pansion in loans to the extent of s5,5O0,-
 000,000. The inevitable tendency, Wall I street pointed out this week, of such an | inflow of gold, has been toward easy credits and imitation. all of which has re- suited in the rapidly mounting cost of everyday living. This is the way A. A. l Housman 6. Co.,, one of the oldest banking ! houses in Wall street, put it this week | in letter to clients:
 "The mistress of a household complains of the cost of food and wonders what people are going to do about it, but it never occurs to her to leave out the oyster | or fish course. She could reduce the cost of her dinner and nobody would miss it. "A woman who comes twice 8 week | from her country place to give costly l lunch party at one of the fashionable ho- | tels complains of the price of fuel. The
 difference between one party week and I two would keep her country house in coal I for the whole winter
 Clerks are heard to complain of the cost of keeping motor cars.
 This is true on whatever plane you l please to test it--true of the banker, the ! merchant, the professor, the skilled ar | tisan, and the day laborer We are all Iafn
 and complaining all the time of the price. What we complain of really is the cost | of increasing luxury. There is no evil dence in any direction of less buying | The demand runs ahead of the price. Re- 1 tailers are placing the largest orders that
 the manufacturers and wholesalers have | ever booked, notwithstanding the rise in 1 prices. Flour has doubled in price in q l year. and the price of the loaf has been l increased where it's weight has not been reduced, but there is no decrease in the amount of bread people eat. There is, 1 instead, actually an increase, and the 1 price of rice has not~ advanced at all
 Rice is a substitute. Nobody wants sub | stitutes.
 we are spending money madly. We | are producing more, consuming more and saving almost nothing. In fact, we are running into debt unawares because it is
 so easy to borrow. It Is easier to borrow
 than to pay. It is easier to sell than to l buy. It Is always so in times of great
 and sudden prosperity; but let us study 1 the problem where it begins and stop
 concealing from ourselves our own reck- | less extravaganza by using abstruse eco 1 homie terms to explain phenomena for
 which we are all individually to blame. 1 The final conclusion reached in the let 1 ter, part of which is quoted above, was 1 that we are all of us so busily engaged | in satisfying an increasing number of luxurious tastes that we haven't the time l to study the simple implications of our | extravaganza. In brief, 1t was declared
 that we could step off our corns if we l tried.
 1 Is that true? Partly: but only partly l The heavy gold imports have undoubtedly
 brought about imitation of credit and that situation has encouraged personal extrav-