The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-10-03
PROFESSOR SAYS
COST OF LIVING.
HAS JUMPED HALF.
This Increase Has Taken
Place Since 1896 and Is
World Wide.

afternoon at four o'clock Professor
Irving Fisher of Yale University gave
the first Of his Hitchcock lectures on
Price Movements. 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 background the final effect has
been to make it more prominent than
ever. The newspapers are again full
of theories as to the cause of this
new elevation of prices, as well as
OF proposed remedies. The country
seems now, unreasonab1y, to expect
Mr.. Hoover to perform a miraculous
cure.
But the whole discussion shows be-
wildernent in the public mind, while
there was never more need of
straight thinking than now With
out it we are apt to attempt the i'm
possible or hang the wrong man to
the lamp post.
We have in this problem, as in
most great problems, four chief ques-
ton to answer: What is it? Why is
it? What of it? What are we going
~ w dDOuL L OlnSI WOTQS, we
must study the facts, the causes, the
evils and the remedies. The first two
lectures will be on the facts about
price movements, the present one be-
ing on the history of price move
ments before the war and the second
on their history during the war.
i We can get a very clear and exact
picture of the average increase in
prices or the cost of living by. means
Of the now familiar Index number
of prices. The prices of various ar
ticles do not move together but scat
ter or dispense like the fragments of
| a 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 per cent. and another has
risen 10 per cent, the average rise
| of the two together has been midway
between 4 per cent and 10 per cent.
| or 7 per cent. That is, 107 is the
| index number Of the two as compar-
ed with 100 last month as a base of
| comparison. The same method ap-
| Probably the best general index
number in use in the world today is
| that recently adopted for wholesale
prices by DIR. 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
/ Gas judged from their consumption
/ in the aast 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.
| It is a curious fact, however, that
| the. most scientifically constructed in
dex number does not greatly differ
from the simple average index
number, nor does it generally make
or only few commodit are includ-
ed.
| Index numbers are a comparatively
modern invention. Not many good
/ ones extend back of 1890, and still
hfewer have been computed back of
1850.
| Jevons, the English economist,
who, more than any other made the
/ index number idea practicable, COM
puted a good index number for Eng
land back to 1892.
4 Others have computed rough index
numbers back to the thirteenth CEN
fury and, with some breaks, back
| even to the eighth century.
The 'edict of Diocletion' in sol
4 A. D. Affords data for still more an
cient and still rougher comparison.
The prices there mentioned of eleven
Ferguson of Bryn Maur) to be on the
average SO per cent. or go per cent
| OF the prices in the United States In
1912. In other words the index num-
Der of prices for Rome in 301. A. D.
stood at SO or so as compared with
n 100 in America today. But this does
not imply that the Roman people
H were better off. On the, contrary
from the same edict we find that Ro-
man wages were only per cent te
20 per cent. Of American wages II
1912. That is the Roman workman
got, say 10 per cent. of the money
wages of the modern American work
man while he had to pay. say half as
much as the American for food. Con
sequently, (if we may trust SO scanty
figures) he enjoyed only one-f1fth AZ
much real income.
It is an interesting fact that
throughout the ages, while price.
have sometimes fallen. they have
generally, risen, although as the Ro
man comparison shows, this does no
necessarily, or even usually mean in,
creasing hardship. Prices are nov
five to ten times as high as thous
and years ago in France and from
four to six times as high as five hun
dred years ago.
And SO we are not the only genera
ton to complain of the high cost o.
living. In the 18th century we hnt
the complaint that wheat cost from
three to ten times it's average price
during the three preceding centuries
and all things else, whatever, susten
ance for man, was likewise raised
without all conscience or reason" w,
are told that f5, two hundred and six
ty years before 1907 brought as mucl
as f28 or $50 at that date.
We may say, by the way, that thi
great upward movement of prices il
the 18th century followed the impof
tation into Europe of silver from tn,
l