The New York herald., 1921-04-18
Telling the President.

President HARDING asked the Fed
eral Trade Commission TO report to
him why prices to consumers had not
come down in the same measure as
basic production costs. The Commits
sion now tells him, and while Its
reply profusely covers the general
facts and circumstances THE New
York HERALD is bound to say it
touches upon the fundamental trouble
in a gingerly fashion.
1t is true, as the report says, that
the bottom has fallen out Of various
raw materials, whether wheat, cot
ton, wool, copper and the like, be-
cause of "a limitation of buying
power" all the way from the manu-
facturer to the consumer. 1t is true,
as the report says, that high rents
and coal prices limit the buying power
of the general public for other com
moditles" 1t is true, as the report
says, that the retailer is reluctant
chased at high prices
4 And 1t Is true that there are "open
price" associations and other agencies
striving TO prevent aggressive compe-
tition; there is insufficient public in
formation on supplies there are other
influences, natural and artificial, work
ing to offset the tendency Of every
thing to scrape bottom when there Is
nowhere any market buoyancy..
But with all that, the very simple,
the very lucid and the very conclu-
sive explanation of what 1t Is that
pinches the ultimate consumer the
hardest is that it is the labor cost 1t
takes to get anything and everything
from It's original source all the way
along the line to his hands.
At one dollar or two dollars a
bushel the actual wheat in loaf Of
bread is the merest trifie Of value.
But the cost of dear milling into
-four, largely labor; the cost of dear
handling by the flour jobber, largely
labor; the cost of dear handling by
the wholesale -four dealer, largely
labor; the cost of dear handling by
the baker and the retailer, largely
| labor: with dear rents, largely the re-
suit of labor charges; dear delivery,
largely labor-all these land on the
consumer as the price of his loaf,
which contains only a fractional cent
Of actual wheat value.
That is why the wheat can toboggan
from peak prices to the valley Of de-
spair without a corresponding decline
in the consumers cost of bread. 1t is
why meat from the cattle range TO the
butcher shop reflects not excessive cost
of primary material but repeated, con-
tlnuous, progressive labor costs. 1t is
why all the food on the public's table,
the coat on its back, the roof over It's
head represent the same thing.
1t Is why the consuming public is
still in the grip of too high cost of
/ living, although thousands of mills ana
| factories are at slow speed or full
stop. although there are millions of
workers in the ranks of the unem-
ployed and although the country wants
to get back to work.
The Federal Trade Commission re-
port says that the cost Of living must
come down as prerequisite to normal
business, and 1t must. The Commits
sion says that unless the producer, the
laborer, the manufacturer, the jobber
and the retailer share in the inevita.
BILE defiation there must be a contin-
uation of the conditions under which
the country is suffering, and there
must be.
But neither Federal Trade Commits
sions nor other holders Of public office,
from the White House down TO the OBJ
scurest product OF the ballot box, are
anxious to tell the whole blunt, hon
est truth, which is that what pro
duction Is waiting for, what business
is waiting for and what the consumer
is waiting for now more than the
correction of all the other causes Of
trouble put together Is wage read
iustment that will permit rational
production costs and rational selling
prices, and then n square days work
for. square days pay.