The Brunswick news. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 1906-2016, 1917-10-02
NEW FACTS
on The HIGH
COST SITUATION
Price Movements Before and
Since the Great War
Commenced.
REASONS AND REMEDIES
Wonderful Argument Set Forth
by Great Student on Price
Movements-High Cost on
Dissection Table,"
REASONS AND REMEDIES

noon at A o'clock Prof Irving Fisher,
of Yale University. gave the first of
his Hitchcock lectures on Price Move
ments. His subject today was price
Movements Before the Great War"
He said in part:
Before the war the whole world was
ringing with complaints of the high
cost of living" and although the war
at first put the question in the back
ground the final effect has been to
make it more prominent than ever.
The newspapers are again full of the
ories as to the caust of this new ele-
vation of prices, as well as of pro
posed remedies. The country seems
now, unreasonably, to expect Mr.
Hoover to perform a miraculous cure
But the whole discussion shows be-
wildermen in the public mind, while
there was never more need of straight
thinking than now Without it we are
apt to attempt the impossible or tc
hang the wrong man to the lamp post
We have in this problem, as in
most great problems, four chief oues-
tioas to answer: What is it? Why
i. is 2t?e What of it? What are we goa
y ing to do about? In other words, We
must study the facts, the causes, the
evils and the remedies. The first two
lectures will be on the facts about
pride movements, the present one
being on the history of price move
ments before the war and the sec
ond on their history during the war
"lndex Numbers"
We can get very clear and exact
picture of the average increase in
prices or the cost of living by means
of the now familith Index numbers"
of prices. The prices of various arti-
cles ido not move together but scatter
or diSperse like the fragments of
bursting shell. Yet there is always
a definite average movement. 1t
therefore becomes important to know
exactly what has been this average
change, i.e., to measure the general
level. of prices at one time as COM
pared with another. If, during, say,
the last month, one commodity has
risen a per cent and another has
risen 10 per cent, the average rise of
the two together has been midway be-
tween per cent and 10 per cent or
per cent. That is, 107 is the index
number of the two as compared with
son. The same method applies to
more than two prices.
Probably the best general index
number in use in the world today is
that recently adopted for wholesale
prices by DR.. Royal Meeker, Commits
sioner of Labor Statistics at Wash
ington. There are three hundred
prices used in making up this index
number 1t is so calculated that the
prices of the more important articles
(as Judged from their consumption in
the last census year, are counted
more heavily or given more weight"
in making up the average than are
those of less important articles. Coal
counts more heavily in the average
than matches and wheat is given
more weight than peanuts.
1t is curious fact, however that
the most scientifically constructed in
/ dex number does not greatly differ
from the simple average" index num-
Der, nor does it generally make much
difference whethersvery many or only
a few commodities are included. g
The Distant Past. ~
Index numbers ara comparatively
modern invention. Not many good
ones extend hackwof 1890, and still
fewer have been computed back OF
1850
Jevons, the English economist. who
more than any other made the index
number idea practicable, computed d
good index number for England back