Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-01-12

been marketed which normally should be
by the end of next March. After that the
law of supply and demand will return to
operation, and the best expert opinion
seems to be that there should be moder
ate reduction in the prices of pork products.
MO CONSIDERATION of the future
NJ Of food prices would be adequate
without devoting some attention to
the question of farm labor. At present
farm labor is both scarce and high.
Students of the subject are not agreed as
to the prospect of early relief.
Labor went from the farms into mill
tary service and into war industries. No
one knows what proportion of the men
who went from the farm into the Army
and Navy will be willing to return to the
farm when discharged from service. No
one knows what proportion of those who
migrated from the farm to industrial CEN
tiers will be willing to return, but the be-
lief is strong that only period of indus
trial depression, with consequent lowering
of wages, would send the majority of them
back.
There is no lack OF agreement in the
conviction that the American farmer, I'M
less supply of farm labor is forthcoming
is going to produce less this year than he
produced last Partly as a result of the
stimulus of high prices-and partly in re-
Spouse to the wars appeal to his patriotism
the American farmer did prodigious thing
last year But to do it he worked harder
than he ever had worked before, and his
wife and daughters worked aheld. The
farmer is not going to work as hard this
year as he worked last, nor are his wife
and daughters going to do the work of
farm hands.
Therefore, unless some event not now
discernible makes available supply of
farm labor before next planting time, there
will be smaller acreage planted this year
than there was last and less intensive cul-
tivation of the crops planted. The result
will be smaller harvests and a lessened
prospect of a reduction in the general level
of food prices.
s~.sA sufhogitAtise comnilasion
~ 81 sfatlsfics pisces the increase in
the cost Of food since July, 1914,
the beginning of the European war, at IS
per cent. The same authority places the
increase in the cost of living as a whole
since that date at $50 per cent. food being
given relative importance of 43 per cent
in the average family budget.
The compilation gives the increase in
the cost of clothing at SO per cent; shelter,
20 per cent fuel and light, S. per cent, and
sundries, S. per cent. There is general be-
lief that substantial reductions in the price
of clothing may be looked for at an early
day, but, clothing being assigned relative
Importance in the family budget of only
132 per cent, the reduction in clothing
prices would have to be very marked to
make any appreciable impress on the cost
of living as a whole. Outside of clothing
there is not held out hope of any early
large decreases in the cost of things for
which the average family spends its in
come.
HERE is no use attempting to dis
guise the fact that the cost-of-1iving
outlook is not an encouraging one
especially when viewed in the light of the
necessity of industrial readjustments.
In some industries the wages of labor
have been increased to meet the higher
cost of necessities. In other industries
they have not, and labor is clamoring for
the increases it deems necessary Each in
crease of wages granted makes the cost
of some commodity higher, and tends to
furnish basis for demand that there be
wage increases at some other point on the
circle.
There is an old adage that that which
goes up must come down. Somewhere at
some time the swing of the circle that is
carrying wages and commodities higher
and ever higher must come to stop.
Either wages or commodity prices must
break, and the breaking of either will
bring down the other.
Those who adyocate that the ooverp