4 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



the fruits and vegetables of Florida and California 

 closer to New York than the near-by farm of earlier 

 generations, while the cold-storage plants and ter- 

 minal warehouses made it possible for perishable 

 commodities to be held for months or years for 

 their ultimate market. 



Prices were fixed not only by a world market but 

 by an all-the-year-around market. The price of 

 butter and eggs in April was fixed in the previous 

 November, just as the price of meat and growing 

 crops was fixed during the harvesting season. 



With all these revolutionary changes, with the re- 

 frigeration devices and the means for placing the 

 products of the world upon the breakfast-table, the 

 control of a multitude of agencies as well as the pro- 

 duction and distribution of food was left to the 

 anarchistic, chaotic direction of thousands of indi- 

 viduals, each of whom was thinking only of maxi- 

 mum profit to himself rather than of the service he 

 was performing for the nation. 



Only in a few countries — notably, Australia, Den- 

 mark, and Germany — has the control of food been 

 viewed as a matter of government concern or sub- 

 jected to a unity of direction in the interest of the 

 producer and the consumer. And these countries 

 have worked out means for social control of food in 

 the interest of the nation. In most of the other 

 countries, and in America in particular, the subject 

 has been left to the unregulated license, not of the 



