20 THE HIGH COST OF LIVLNG 



should be a small item in our budget even with the 

 prosperity and the great export demand which now 

 prevails. 



But the price of food has mounted skyward. The 

 poor are suffering from actual want. Persons of 

 reasonable incomes do not get enough to supply 

 their needs, while those of relatively large incomes 

 feel the pinch of the cost of meat, poultry, eggs, 

 butter, sugar, and many articles that a few years 

 ago were the commonest of articles upon their tables. 



Is there any justification for this situation? Are 

 the speculators justified in their defense? Must we 

 control the laws of demand and supply, or is the 

 trouble that the law of demand and supply is not 

 permitted to operate and prices are fixed arbitrarily 

 by the speculators who have themselves created 

 scarcity conditions? 



Statistics of prices and food supply seem to dem- 

 onstrate several things: 



One — ^that the prices we are paying are far in ex- 

 cess of what we should pay, even with the law of 

 demand and supply freely operative; 



Two — that there is not as much food produced 

 per capita as there should be and not nearly as much 

 as could easily be produced; and 



Three — ^that the government must step in and in- 

 sure the free play of the law of demand and supply 

 and also suspend the operations of the law when the 

 supply is so much below the demand that artificial 



