Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-03-06
One Factor in Food Prices.

The idea that present high prices caused
by enormous exports to Europe is not borne out by
facts and figures. To the contrary, our exports or
food staples were notably less last year than IN
1918 the decreases amounting to hfty-one million
bushels in wheat a million and quarter barrels
in -four fifteen million pounds in canned beef and
eighty-one million pounds in fresh beef There
was slight increase in exports of cured hams and
shoulders and a considerable increase in exports
of bacon Evidently, then, the remedy for the bur-
densome cost of food necessares does not lie in
the drastic and truly dangerous food-export en-
barge which the illdisguised friends of the Hohen-
zolIern monarchy are urging If the United States
we're in peril Of starvation, the Government would
be warranted in stopping food exports; but there is
not now the remotest prospect of that condition.
OF some commodities it is true, there is disturb
ing shortage, and in some crowded centers of pop
uIation there have been days of wide distress But
of necessaries in general, there is a suficiency if
not plentitude; and for the country whole,
there is no cause for alarm the food supply,
though there is urgent reason for thoughtful, Wig
orous effort to effect fair readjustment in prices.
That manipulation and monopoly have something
to do with the burdensome prices of today there is
no denying. But far troublous factor, it
to is lack OF efficiency in the distribution
and marketing of food supplies. Persons or syndi-
Gates, like the Chicago scoundrel who
sands of dozens of eggs solely with view to pill
Laying the public ought be put convict stripes
But in the problem of high prices, as in most HUI
predicaments the trouble springs not so much
from purposed evil from stupid carelessness
Because very few people, until recent months or
years, gave any serious thought or practical effort
to the principles and the business of distributing
and marketing food supplies, we have reached our
present critical stage unprepared and uniformed.
In Georgia, for example, when it became impera-
tive that farmers diversity their crops following the
Generalization of cotton in 1914, we realized with
painful defnteness what long had known in
general way, that had market facilities for
Georgia-raised food crops and food animals. 1t is
only within the last two years that there has been
an earnest effort supply this grave deficiency in
economic order. The State Chamber of Com
meTce has done and is doing admirable work to
that end, also many local boards of trade and
a number of railroads and business institutions
notably the Southern Bell Telephone Company and
the Southern Express Company. Yet, the signiti-
cant fact must be remembered that we we're caught
wholly unprepared to market food products when
necessity's grim law forced Georgia farmers to
raise them.
That is true in principle of the country as a
whole. In some communities and regions perhaps
the problems of food marketing have been studied
and tested and reduced to a basis of both economic
and social efficiency. But of the United States at
large just the contrary is true The of getting
food commodities from the producer to the con-
is frequently far greater than the cost of
production Not only the needless expense but also
the needless waste i'm getting food products from
farm to pantry is prodigious. These are among the
crudest most glazing ineficiencies of our present
system, rather lack of system of handling the
country's food supply. Competent Investigators
could discover, and probably have discovered,
scores of other and more fundamental neficiencies.
Which displace present laundering and
FUSION with some weI-ordered system, there will
be a much fairer chance for the laws of supply and
demand to operate swiftly, smoothly and justly.
And so soon as there is earnest beginning toward
securing such a system, one of the basic strong
holds of burdensome food forces will begin to yield