The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-08-10

supply of the nation must come.
Only with government control can
the enormous profits of spectators
be eliminated. Only with such con-
troll can the producers, transporta-
tion companies, jobbers and retailers
be assured of fair return and moth
ing more.
The people of the United States
pay 81 cents for the distribution of
every dollars worth of goods. The
Japanese do it for II cents.
Packing houses and the producers
of beet sugar are reaping untold
millions today.
The packing houses are quoting
ham and bacon on the theory that
hogs cost them about II cents a
pound, live weight. The truth is
that the packing houses bought most
of the meat that they are now SELL
ing at exhorbitant prices when hogs
were around about z cents pound.
The public imagines that the man
who raises hogs is getting most of
the money; the truth is that he sold
most Of his stock at the lower prices.
Of the comparatively few hogs now
being sold at high prices, the pack
ers are basing their price lists for
everything they sell.
Just One Remedy
Sugar costs are outrageous. Some
where between the man who raises
the beets and the man who buys the
sugar at retail profit Of several
hundred per cent is being made.
There is only one remedy. 1t is
for the government to take the seven
great staples of the country in hand,
if nothing else, and see that justice
is done to the man who produces and
the man who eats.
Let US look at the situation af-
fecting the pork products.
The season for the selling for the
hog raisers Of the middle west is in
October, November and December of
each year. Remember that the mid
die west is the great hog producing
district of the United States. The
pigs arrive early in the spring; they
are carried through the summer and
fatten in the fall, going at once to
the market. It SO happened that last
year, in the fall, there was an ex-
ceptionally good opportunity for the
farmers to sell their corn as such,
rather than feed it to hogs. The re-
suit was that hogs were rushed to the
packing houses and sold for from 81
to SO q hundred pounds.
They are making prices of pork
products as though they had bought
their entire stock at present high
prices for livestock and the press is
reporting q famine in sight.
For instance, bacon made out of
hogs at SIT hundred pounds could
easily be made to figure as worth
from 38 to AZ cents a pound, retail
ing from As to SO cents. Even so,
the retailer would stand loss, as
he must meet the shrinkage.
But what about the right price
for bacon made from hogs that cost
81 and So a hundred pounds, tn
material going into sweet pickle until
finally being made into bacon?
It is the ham and bacon and lard
from such priced hogs that the pack
ing houses are selling at fancy fig
ures, and not the products Of 10 to
17-cent hogs.
There was more pork and beef in
cold storage on January ! OF the
present year by 150,000.O00 pounds
than there was on January l, 1916.
That means that the primary pro-
ducts, hogs and cattle, were pretty
well out of the hands of the original
producers by that time.
This curtailed the usual amount OF
late delivery hogs and cattle to the
packers. With enormous quantities
of goods in storage and sweet pickle
at comparatively low prices. the pack
ers can look with equanimity on
higher prices for the relatively
smaller amounts of hogs and cattle
now being bought.
That is the sort of operation that
profits the packers so enormously.
That is where the shoe pinches. That
is where government regulation
should intervene to give the packing
houses fair returns for their capital
and energy but no more than fair
return.
l sympathize with the campaign
that is being made by the govern
ment to stimulate production; but at
the same time if present trade con-
ditions are allowed to continue, the