Norwich bulletin., 1918-05-17
L0osened

feet, last summer, the point which was was constantly urged home,-the idea upon which express or implied stress was always laid was that all prices were so correlated and interwoven that it was going to be practically impossible with one without tangling up others in the dwellings. It was then urged that in order to get any sort of smooth running through gov ernment interference, either all prices should be regulated or none should be interfered with.
 Hasn't the outcome shown that this was correct?
 if government, when fixing the price of flour and ordering you and l to buy equal quantities of substitutes with every bag or barrel, had at the same time and by the same order so fixed the prices of those substitutes that they should have cost us the same or less than the flour, two-thirds of the criticism and nine -tenths of the an- noyance which has resulted would have been avoided.
 It could have regulated prices of oats and corn and barley, etc. as well as of wheat. The actual worth of these has at no time been beyond that of wheat The only reason why they have cost us more is that the proiteers were choked off the wheatpit but allowed free run in the barley, oat and corn fields.
 And they have gorged themselves. There's no doubt about that. Even the food administration has at last woke up to the seriousness of the situation, and is beginning to try to amend it's initial mistake. Food Ad l ministrator Hoover has just issued a formal denunciation of those dealers who charge more for barley, oat tnd corn products than for wheat flour. 1 He says:
 At present prices of corn, barley, and oats, the millers are or should be | offering meals and Hours from these 1 grains at prices considerably below 1 wheat flour; in fact, cornmeaI should 1 be selling from the mill door at 25 per cent. less than wheat four and oatmeal even less. Ratio white corn l flour or barley four should be selling at 10 to 15 per cent. below wheat i flour. There is therefore absolutely no justification for present price levels in these substitutes"
 
 1 never has been any Justification It 1 has been just profiteering and nothing else: proflteering at the cost to the 1 injury of every consumer in the land 1 for the enrichment of retailers and 1 wholesalers and millers and other handlers who, being debarred by gov ernment from making undue profits on wheat flour, seized it's fifty-f1 order as an excuse under which to gobble everything else they could get | their hands on. No single class is solely to blame. They are all tarred with the same stick. The miller charged what he pleased, and the wholesale charged what he could get
 and the retailer charged what fhe traffic would bear. And between them 1 they boosted the prices of the sub- stitutes to point for which, according 1 to MT. Hoover. there is absolutely no justification
 All because the food administration when ti tied their one arm against wheat profiteering, left the other free to profiteer with a scoop shovel in
 corn and oats and barley!
 A week or two ago, referred to the
 amazing plea made by the cheese pro- ducers of New York state, who alleged that thousands of tons of cheese would spoil unless the government took ii off their hands. This at the very time
 when millions of private consumers were eager to take it off their hands 1 if they would only put the price dowr where common folks could afford it Since then another vail has come
 out of New York city to the effec that thousands and thousands of ton: of corn meal were going to waste
 there. And now the Federal Foot
 board of the same state reports tha
 there are nearly 100,0 barrels of ry,
 flour in New York city, and yer!
 little demand for it''
 Great Scott! Cheese "going t waste and corn-meal going t waste" and rye flour going t wastet" And ten million people cage to buy the last pound of every one if the holders would sell it at a pric
 which would make it's use hopeful
 economical!
 It begins to look as if governmen
 would have to Ego the whole hog: fix the prices of everything and ratio us all
 In the meantime, if it could onl get a good hold of about ten thousan soulless profteers, shake their ill
 gotten gains out of them and then in ) tern them for the remainder of th war on diet of nothing but substi
 tutes. it would help the rest of us } whole lot
 THE FARMER. ;, CHAPLIN