LABOR AND CAPITAL 461 



statistics and these tables are illustrative. Some of them are as absurd 

 as would be tables to prove increase in cost of living by comparing the 

 price of diaphanous calico in 1858 with that of the finest cambric muslin 

 in 1913. The writer has lived in New York city during almost three 

 quarters of a century and he knows that, whatever may be the condi- 

 tions elsewhere, prices of the essential articles of food, with few excep- 

 tions, show comparatively little increase during the last fifty years, 

 while some show a marvelous decrease — material of the same quality 

 being compared throughout. Beef, such as nearly all New Yorkers ate 

 sixty years ago, can be purchased at hundreds of large shops at barely 

 20 per cent, higher price ; flour, grade for grade, has not risen in price, 

 while the great fluctuations in price of the olden time are unknown — in 

 1854 or 1855 the writer paid twelve dollars for a barrel of family flour 

 for his father; eggs, grade for grade, are, thanks to cold storage, little 

 higher during the winter months than they were many years ago ; while 

 refined sugar costs to-day little more than was charged for a light brown 

 sugar in 1858. Butter and hog products have increased in cost and are 

 likely to continue increasing until ruled off the list of foods. The 

 growth of urban population has destroyed the butter industry, as sale of 

 milk is more profitable and less burdensome. In former times, when 

 corn was worth only a few cents per bushel, western farmers had their 

 choice between using it as fuel or converting it into pork. But corn is 

 worth now from 50 to 70 cents per bushel, according to the crop, and it 

 can not be converted into pork except at a loss. Pork will disappear as 

 a food staple and butter will be replaced by the more wholesome oleo- 

 margarine products. Within our large cities, an anomalous condition 

 exists in the price of vegetables. Wholesale prices have not increased, 

 indeed in many cases, they have decreased greatly; yet because of 

 archaic methods of distribution, the retail cost is greater. But this 

 does not concern the general question. 



The stability of prices of the food staples, in spite of increasing 

 demand, is due to several causes, of which only three need be noted; 

 the consolidation of continuous transportation lines, which has made 

 possible the extraordinary low freight rates in this country ; the consoli- 

 dation and localization of manufacturing interests, which has increased 

 available capital and has led to introduction of improved methods ; the 

 ingenuity of inventors, which has made unnecessary a vast quantity of 

 unskilled, even of skilled labor. Our flour is from Dakota wheat ground 

 in Minneapolis and our beef is from western cattle slaughtered in Chi- 

 cago, yet the prices are, at most, little higher than those paid sixty years 

 ago for flour brought by water from Eochester and Eichmond, or for 

 beef from Ohio and New York. 



But in some other directions, where the inventor's work has not 

 kept pace with expansion or where trade-union influence has prevented 

 full utilization, the effect of increased wages is only too manifest; the 



